


Hidden

by AxeMeAboutAxinomancy



Category: His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman, Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Daemons, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bees, Daemon Feels, Daemon Separation, Daemon Touching, Daemons, First Time, Hell Trauma, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Torture, Is Not Soulless At All, M/M, Podfic Available, Soulless Sam Winchester, Ultimate Sacrifice, Witches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-30
Updated: 2017-01-30
Packaged: 2018-09-20 11:11:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 79,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9488537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AxeMeAboutAxinomancy/pseuds/AxeMeAboutAxinomancy
Summary: When Sam comes back from Hell, helookslike a monster: his dæmon is missing. But she's only hidden inside him. Meanwhile, Dean struggles with his own uneasy dæmon and the fear that Sam will leave him again.





	1. It's just me

**Author's Note:**

> This is not my first His Dark Materials fusion. I've also written a Sherlock one, 'Unsettled' (and a short sequel called 'Snowlight'). This story is different from that one, although some of its possibly triggering premise does _briefly_ get mentioned in a completely off-screen way at one point in this story (in Chapter 6). It is not the same kind of story, but it has its own situations which are potentially disturbing. Some of these are canon in the Supernatural universe, like Hell-related trauma, and some in the His Dark Materials universe, like the threat of intercision. If that doesn't make you back out, and if while reading you find something upsetting happening to a character you love, please be assured that I love these characters too, very much, and I will not leave them in a bad place. I promise.  
> 
> Thank you so, so much to TSylvestris, who helped in so many ways, right to the very last line. ♥

Dean thought he was never really going to forgive Castiel for what he did to Sam, but when it comes to real blame he's only got himself. He's the one who failed. He's the one who let Sam go ahead with his plan. He's the one who let Sam let the Devil in and go down into the Pit.

Now Sam is back, alive - but he's different. He's _mutilated_. His beautiful dæmon -

Stop. Rewind.

***

They got the tattoos as soon as Sam's dæmon settled, that same week. Dad had been impatient, just like he'd been with Dean - hassling Sam about why it was taking so long - as though he wasn't already making Sam grow up too fast just with the way they lived.

Dad had wanted both his sons' dæmons to settle as wolves. Like his dæmon, Trelle. Dean guessed he'd been wishing they could be a sort of hunter pack. But the way he went about it pretty much guaranteed he wouldn't get what he wanted. Dean's Isabett was a wolverine, and Sam's Irria was now settled as a dog. A big, beautiful dog, a red golden retriever almost bigger than eleven-year-old Sam was at the time. But Dad sneered about dogs being _servile_ , even while Trelle sniffed noses with Irri's new form.

Bett had tried to be a wolf, for Dean's sake if not for Dad's. Dean had tried hard to be like Dad, to do and be the way Dad wanted. But he'd been a _kid_ , and a kid's dæmon jumps around like his attention span, and when she'd jump up and be a bird or some quick climbing animal, Dad would get tense and make remarks about how at that age, a boy shouldn't let his dæmon linger in shapes you wouldn't want them to settle in.

After enough of these remarks, Bett refused to ever be a wolf again. And what she chose in the end turned out to be just right, for Dean. A wolverine was a perfect dæmon for a hunter. She was deceptively small at about thirty pounds, but a wolverine could kick a bear's ass.

Even Dad seemed reluctantly satisfied with Bett, eventually, though Dean was sure that John had wondered if Dean's having a wolverine instead of a wolf was him being _sarcastic_.

Well, at least Irri was settled. Now they could get their hunter's marks. Dean had been looking forward to this himself, though he was a little apprehensive too because it was supposed to hurt and he was worried that he might show pain in front of Dad. Or worse, Sam. He didn't want Sam to be scared.

Dean had never seen the inside of a tattoo shop before. This was a special one, too. The artist, Lindsey, was a woman Dad and Bobby knew, another hunter.  She did ordinary tattoos most of the time - there were photos and artwork all over the walls. Her dæmon was an orange stripey cat, who crouched apparently dozing on a chair.

But what the Winchesters were there for wouldn't need them to pick out a design. It was a special symbol that warded against hellion possession. They had to use Dust in the ink - and they had to mark the dæmon, too. That was why they had to wait till the dæmon was settled.

Dean was nervous, but he was fifteen and thought having a tattoo would be cool. He turned from a picture on the wall of a badass fiery skull on a biker's forearm and said, "Could I get mine on my arm?" gesturing toward his own still-skinny bicep. It was the traditional spot. Manly. "It'd look cool."

Lindsey started to answer but John said flatly, "Don't be stupid, Dean. Arms can be cut off. You can't live without a torso."

Dean flinched when he said that. It was bad enough to say at all, but in front of Sam was even worse. The thought of somebody cutting Sam's arm off made Dean feel sick.

Irri brushed noses with Bett, and Dean felt the sickness recede. Lindsey said, "Dean? Ready, big guy?"

He took off his shirt and sat down in the chair. Bett crouched down between his feet. He would have liked to have her in his lap, but whether or not Dad would have thought that was 'soft,' she was too big and would be in the way of Lindsey's work. He would hold Bett when Lindsey marked her, but Bett couldn't hold him.

He tried not to flinch. Lindsey was nice and she smelled good and when she leaned in close, he could almost see down her shirt. She kind of caught him at it, but she didn't embarrass him in front of Dad - only gave him an eyebrow that made him blush and try to look around at something else. He definitely didn't want to watch the needle. The burning had almost turned to numbness as long as he thought about something else.

There was a little hand lettered sign over the mirror that read _"What gets sucked by an incubus and inked by a succubus? A Hell's Angel."_

It took him a minute to figure it out, but when he did Dean blushed worse than ever.

The worst part was Bett's mark. She didn't make any sound when Lindsey inked Dust into her hind leg, but the wolverine dæmon was so tense she almost shook, and the look she gave him when it was over wounded him to the quick.

When it was Sam's turn, Dean held his hand. Dad looked like he was going to say something, but Dean squared his shoulders and wouldn't be shamed. Sam was eleven. Irri had only just settled. He was still a kid. And tattoos _hurt_ , especially when they had to use Dust, even the tiny bit they did use. It burned for days after, and Dean could see the symbol in his dreams.

***

Sam grew so big eventually that Irri looked normal sized beside him. Sam got taller than Dean, which was _not fair._

But Bett was awesome. He wouldn't have wanted to be anybody else with any other dæmon.  Dean was a fuckup in so many ways, but Bett was the best part of him.

Sam left - went to college. Dean knew that was what should happen, it was what he'd wanted for Sam too, but for weeks after he and Irri had gone, Bett dragged around as though she weighed hundreds of pounds. Dad had been impatient with Dean, and Trelle had snapped at Bett. It took a good hunt to cheer them up again, but though Dean and Bett had each other, thank god, things weren't the same without Sam to talk to, or without Irri curled up with Bett in Baby's back seat.

Dad and Trelle went off on their own more and more. Then he was out of contact for too long, and Dean went to get Sam from school.

He'd thought things were good - some bad, but mostly good - hunting together. Doing the right thing, doing what they were supposed to. And they were good at it, got better all the time. They were hot on the trail of the yellow-eyed hellion that killed Mom.

And then there was the accident. And the hospital in Memphis, where Dean was supposed to die. But didn't. Because of Dad.

And Dad died.

In the weeks following, Dean's grief turned inward until Bett struck at him for the first time in their lives, her big claws slashing deep cuts in his leg. Sam confronted him then too. Thank god, Sam didn't leave him and go back to school. Sam stayed with Dean. They went on hunting. Sam was not only the brains in their outfit, but he and Irri showed signs of special power against hellions. They thought it gave them an advantage. They didn't realize until too late where the power had come from.

And then Sam died.

In a life where he had already seen many terrible things, Dean had never seen anything so awful, so world-endingly wrong and bad, as Sam lolling forward into his arms, and Irri - Dean was looking right at her when it happened, anxiously looking at her for proof that Sam was only wounded, that he was all right - Irria, his brother's dæmon, went out like a firework exploding, a bright roiling burst of Dust. Beautiful - awful - gone.

Bett made a sound, a wordless cry of pain. Dean felt it in every cell in his body. _No._

Bobby and his mountain lion dæmon went running past in pursuit of Jake. But for Dean, it was too late, too late for everything. Sam was dead in his arms. The negative afterimage of Irri going out was floating against his eyelids whenever he closed them.

_Don't leave us._

He took Sam's body into one of the cabins and sat staring at it. Bett kept prowling the room, around and around, looking for her sister-dæmon, who wasn't there anymore. When he tried to force her to stop she bit his hands. They already had Sam's blood dried all over them from when he'd felt uselessly at the wound on Sam's back.

Sam. Already going cold. His dæmon gone out. Sam gone out.

For all he'd been so big, Sam looked small lying there without his dæmon. Dean tried to hold his hand, but it was cold.

In the end, what could he do? Take after Dad. Do what had to be done. Bury a box at the crossroads and make a deal. He sold himself and Bett to bring Irri back to Sam.

And they only got a year.

He and Bett ran back to the cabin with the taste of the crossroads hellion's kiss still sour in Dean's mouth.

He didn't get to see it happen - but that was all right. The sight of Sam, stumbling in the bedroom doorway, and Irri there beside him, pressed against his leg - Bett barrelled straight into Irri, knocking into her hard, and Dean tried to call her back but his voice didn't work.

Sam's eyes on him were a miracle, but they were sad too. There was no hiding from him what Dean had obviously done. Irri _remembered_ , even if Sam didn't. She lay down on the floor and endured patiently while Bett climbed on her back, climbed off, ran around her, nuzzled her face, started over again.

Dean hugged Sam tight, feeling the same body he'd carried in here _dead_ now breathing, heart beating, warm, and it was the most wonderful thing he'd ever felt. It had been worth it. No question. Dad did it for Dean, but Dean would have done it for Sam anyway. He would have done anything for Sam. He lay his head down to hear that heartbeat. Music.

"Dean," Sam said, and there was a little bit of _how could you_ in his voice, but it was soft.

"Had to," Dean said, it was all he could say. And Sam just said, "I know," his heartbeat steady and true under Dean's ear.

They killed the yellow-eyed hellion, but then... there was only a year. It didn't even feel like a whole year. It was like the red sand in the Wicked Sorceress' hourglass. _That's how much longer you've got to be alive. And it isn't long, my pretty. It isn't long._

It wasn't long. And it wasn't pretty.

He was grateful at least that Sam couldn't see the hellhounds. And it wasn't like they sent a _little_ one for Bett. Even while one of them was clawing Dean open, ripping him up, he could _feel_ what the other one did to Bett, tearing and crushing with its teeth, both of them _screaming_ until -

_they went out_

He couldn't see her go out, he was going out too. _Lights out._ They both imploded and became heavy and fell down, down, down.

They were caught at last in a net of barbed wire and they hung there in the red, reeking heat, writhing and crying for help and mercy. That didn't exist.

They were there for what turned out to be only months. Those months were years in Hell. Even after they were saved, the memories of that time came back with them like stowaways, hornets that hovered and randomly stung. The things that were done. The things they did. The way you could get sick to death of your own screams or your own dæmon's, no matter how pitiful, if they went on long enough.

But they were pulled out. The handprint that throbbed on Dean's shoulder and the opposite hand's mark scorching Bett's fur white were made by Castiel - though they didn't know that at first. They woke up in a coffin and had to dig their way out of the ground like Uma Thurman in that movie.

Uma Thurman's dæmon wasn't a wolverine, though. Wolverines could _dig_.

When they got to Bobby's, Bobby reacted with fear as though Dean were a ghast or a skin-changer, but his dæmon knew Bett and went right to her.

"Dean?" said Bobby, staring at him, eyes wet. And there was hugging. Dean didn't mind it. It felt like a thousand years since someone had touched him because they cared about him.

"It's good to see you, boy," Bobby said. "You too, Bett." Then he doused them with holy water.

"We're not a hellion, either," said Bett, dripping, while Dean glared.

"Sorry. Can't be too careful."

Then they'd gone to find Sam. Sam had to have done this, somehow. Who else?

When they stepped into the room, Sam lunged at Dean, and Irri _barked_ at Bett - but then as Bett stood frozen, Irri came forward and nuzzled her.

And there was more hugging. Dean clung to Sam for a long moment, and for the first time since he came back he really rejoiced to be alive.

He was angry with Sam, too, because he thought Sam had done the same dumb thing he'd done, selling his soul after all Dean had done to save it.

But he hadn't.

Dean found out what had saved him the next day, with Bobby, when they met Castiel.

Even monsters had dæmons - most of them, anyway - but angels apparently had - _nothing_. There was nowhere to _look_ for any hint about Cas' character or what he was feeling. It was unnerving. He looked human but he wasn't. Whatever he really was was _inside_ him somehow.

Bett had started out showing her teeth - she had a _lot_ of teeth - but by the time the angel showed off the shadow of his wings, Dean glanced down to see his dæmon sprawled out on the floor in a pose of relaxation. She _never_ looked like that when they were on a hunt. She was making a point.

 _Angels_. What the actual fuck.

"So you're possessing some poor bastard?"

"He's a devout man," the angel said. "He actually prayed for this."

"Yeah? What about his dæmon? Did she pray for - whatever you did to her?" Not that what hellions did when they possessed a person and their dæmon wasn't ugly, but the dæmon remained when the hellion was gone - if the person survived the possession, of course.

"That being is within me," Castiel said. "You may consider her to be sleeping. An angel cannot inhabit any vessel without their permission, Dean. Be at ease." Nodding at the floor, "Behold your own dæmon."

Bett certainly was at ease. Dean frowned.

"Why would an angel rescue us from Hell? We weren't there on a technicality. I _sold_ us." His gesture down at Bett was like throwing a gauntlet. She rolled back to her feet, but still looked completely calm, while Dean felt strung so tight he might snap.

"Good things do happen, Dean."

"Not in our experience."

"What's the matter? You don't think you deserve to be saved?" Tilting his head toward Bett, "Or that _she_ does?"

What the hell answer could Dean give to that? So he didn't. "Why'd you do it?"

"Because the Authority commanded it. Because we have work for you."

***

Well. That went… how it went. It went bad. It went _Apocalypse_ bad. It went, Sam-letting-himself-be-taken bad.

Sam-letting- _Irri-_ be-taken bad.

It wasn't like Dean had been fearing - or if it was, he couldn't see it. It was too bright, the moment after Sam and Irri said Yes. Dean had had to turn away, reflexively preserving his eyes. Bett had pressed against his leg, trembling.

Then Sam was passed out. And _there was no Irri._ But Sam was breathing.

Dean was trembling too, as he brought out the key of four rings and said the spell to open the way to the Pit. Like all spells, even the ones done by knowledgeable amateurs like Dean, it _tugged_ on Bett as the magic took hold. Dean felt it as a strange little pain in the center of his chest.

It was bad. Sam got up and he _seemed_ like himself. In pain, and without Irri. Like he'd been cut in half.

And it was _bad_ , but the plan was working, and Dean had already _tried_ to let Sam go, _and_ he already took that back when they realized Lucifer knew everything they intended. Sam decided he was strong enough. Sam had to be strong enough.

Sam went to the edge of the vortex, and Dean's heart keened to see him there, knowing that after this, he would never be able to see Sam again, or Irri, and they would never -

Sam turned his head, and gave Dean a little _smile_ over his shoulder.

"I was just messing with you," said the thing in Sam. "They're long gone."

And it was worse.

That wasn't Sam. If Sam was in there, if Irri was in there, they were captives. They were slaves. If they were in there at all.

It would have been better to let the world end than to try this. But it was too late to know that.

Lucifer closed the way to the Pit, and vanished, leaving Dean and Bett standing there.

And then there was the cemetery. So damn close to their hometown, where everything started. That couldn't be a coincidence.

Dean and Bett went there expecting to die. Of course they did. What happened to Cas was unexpected, though. It was so sudden and brutal that there was barely time to blink, and no body to blink at just to understand. Cas gone.

He could hardly even see Lucifer as Sam anymore. It took an effort, it took leaning on Bett to be able to make himself try to talk to Sam _in there_ .

"Sammy?" he said. "Irri? Can you hear me?"

Lucifer-Sam killed Bobby and Theya. Then he beat Dean in a way Dean knew he deserved. He felt things break against Sam's hand. No fair. Using powers. Sam wouldn't. Bett writhed with his pain but did not attack.

"Are you in there?" Dean gasped, pinned against Baby's side. "We're here. We're not gonna leave you."

He never knew if it was what he said or what, but Lucifer-Sam stopped for a minute, and then suddenly, he was _Sam_ and he let go.

"It's okay, Dean. It's gonna be okay. We've got him."

Last words. Between them, anyway. Sam threw the rings down and spoke the spell to open the Pit. Dean, ears ringing, throbbing with a hundred pains, stared at him and watched as he shouted at Michael-Adam and they both went _down, down down_ into the dark.

Cas came back. Somehow. He brought Bobby back too, healed Dean.

What was there left to do? He and Bett had nowhere else to go. So they kept a promise.

***

Lisa's dæmon Galian was cute, and had always made Dean laugh. He was some kind of a ferret - Lisa had told him exactly what kind more than once, but Dean didn't retain those things - and he was a lot of fun. Like Lisa. They were flexible in various ways.

Ben's Aesina wasn't settled yet. They were definitely getting to be the age for it. Dean remembered Dad getting on to Sam - but thoughts of Sam went over sudden cliffs into screeching blackness. Like Sam had.

 _Stop. Rewind_.

When Dean met Ben, he was so sure Ben must be his kid. He couldn't look at Ben and _not_ see himself. He kind of looked like Dean. He liked the same things. But Lisa was absolutely sure. And when Dean took another look at Aesina, even though she wasn't settled yet, he could see that she wasn't much like Bett at all, though they got along fine. Aesina even tried out the wolverine form for a minute once, but it didn't look like it fit. It looked like a costume on her. Privately, Dean thought she was going to settle as some kind of bird. But you never knew.

When he and Bett showed up on their doorstep, Lisa opened the door without question for them to come in. Their physical injuries had been healed, but Dean had to carry Bett. She barely responded to Galian, either. She wasn't talkative at the best of times, but now she had nothing to say, maybe ever. Dean didn't know.

They were there for three days.

On the evening of the third day, somebody knocked.

They were sitting down to dinner. It would have been normal for Lisa or Ben to answer the door, but she was carrying things to the table, and Ben was washing his hands. Dean was just starting to feel a little less like a useless zombie. Bett was walking on her own, if slowly.

"I'll get it," Dean said.

In fact, Bett started moving faster, getting to the door before Dean did so that she had to crowd back when he opened it. It wasn't like her, especially now.

But then - there was Sam.

_Sam._

Couldn't be. But he was standing there.

But Irri _wasn't_. Lucifer had _escaped -_ was here to taunt him - hurt them -

"Dean," Sam said, "it's _me_ ," and he sounded like himself, looked like himself. But the Devil had played that trick before.

Dean felt a slow, distant impulse to do things, to say things, to make it clear to Lucifer that he wasn't fooled. If nothing else, to close the damn door before Ben or Lisa came along.

Bett had pushed between Dean's knees, but she went no further, staring frozen up at Sam, _Sam without Irri._ He could feel a tremor go through her. They were both remembering that time, that creepy family in the woods, the old batshit-religious matriarch with her special knife cutting the kids' dæmons away, and what those poor kids grew up into. Monsters. Pathetic, pitiable, skin-crawlingly dæmonless monsters. They were both remembering, too, how Lucifer took Sam and Irri, how she had disappeared inside the archangel that took up Sam's body.

And now, here was Sam. Or what was left of him. Cut in half. Dean felt stunned by it all, unable to do what he should and shut the damn door.

Then, Bett moved. She went right up to the apparition, stood up on her hind legs and _put her front paws on his knee_.

She _touched_ him. She _was touching_ him.

Sam gasped.  

Bett said, "Sam."

Unbalanced, Dean leaned heavily against the doorframe, staring.

Sam's wide eyes dragged up from the dæmon at his feet to stare at Dean.

"It's really me," said Sam, hoarsely, then gave a humorless little laugh. "Just me."

 _'Just me, no Lucifer,' or 'just me, no dæmon?'_  "Where is she?" said Dean. He couldn't help it. It was the first thing anyone would think, laying eyes on Sam: _where is his dæmon?_

Sam's face crumpled with confusion. "I don't know."

That was a bad answer. That was what the dæmonless ones would always say if you asked. But the way Sam said it - and Bett's behavior - Dean's thoughts didn't know which way to jump. Bett had never just - _touched_ Sam. She had touched _Irri_. That was normal, between the dæmons of people who had a close relationship.

One's own dæmon touching somebody else wasn't normal.

Bett dropped back down to all fours, but she was leaning against Sam's leg.

Behind him, Lisa said, "Dean? Who is it?"

He turned back intending to say, Go on, I'll deal with this - in time to see the look on Lisa's face change to incredulous horror, as her gaze darted around for a dæmon that wasn't there.

"Lisa," Sam started to say, but she recoiled. Her eyes were wide, her whole body vibrating with tension. Anyone would react this way to a dæmonless person, but Lisa knew more about the world than the average person. She knew about the supernatural side of the world. Lisa's ferret dæmon clung to her shoulder and neck, half hidden in her hair, trembling.

"What is it," she said, her voice flat.

"It's - _Sam_ ," Dean said. Ben's voice came from behind Lisa, "Mom? What's going on?"

Lisa was protective of Ben, of course she was, and one of the things a dæmonless man might be was a Dust predator, a sort of vampire who fed on the unsettled dæmons of kids. She blazed up, "Do not let that thing in my house! Ben! Get in your room now!"

Sam backed up a step, then another. "I'll go," he said hoarsely. "I'm sorry - "

"No," said Dean. Bett came back to him and leaned against his leg now. He could feel her rapid heartbeat. "We'll go with you."

It didn't take him long to gather up what little he'd brought with him. Sam waited in the car while he did, and Lisa stood vigil at the front door, watching him. Ben watched from upstairs, Dean saw when he left. He lifted a hand in goodbye, but he couldn't tell if Ben waved back.

***

Now, he and Sam are driving away from Lisa's house, away from Cicero, away from Indiana, blindly striking out for the nearest highway to anyplace else.

Sam sits shotgun with his arms wrapped tightly around himself. Bett sits between them. Dean's attention is on the road, but Bett's is on Sam.

Bett seems to think everything is fine. All he feels from her is joy at Sam's return. But Dean is worried, worrying.

Sam says, "Dean. Talk to me."

In the same moment that Sam speaks, Dean realizes he's gripping the steering wheel so tight his knuckles are aching.

Bett shifts in the seat to press against Dean's thigh, silent support. Dean drops his right hand down onto her back. It helps.

"We can go to Bobby's," Dean says, though he knows that's not the sort of thing Sam wants to hear. "He might freak out, but he won't think you're a Dust predator." Lisa doesn't _know_ Sam, but Bobby does. His dæmon does.

Sam sucks in his breath through his nose at 'Dust predator.' "That's what Lisa thinks?"

"She knows enough about supernatural crap to be afraid. And she's got Ben." Dean tries not to sound bitter about it. "He's been attacked by weird shit before. What can you do."

"I'm sorry," Sam says, and Dean is clutching the wheel again.

"Sorry for what? For coming back?"

He expects Sam to say No to that but he doesn't. Sam shrugs with one shoulder. "For messing things up for you with Lisa."

"No," Dean says. "Jesus, Sam."

"We only went to her because we lost you," Bett says. "There wasn't anyplace else for us to go."

Dean doesn't like Bett saying stuff like this to other people, but this one time it's all right. "We'll go to Bobby's," he says again. "Maybe - maybe there's," but his throat sort of locks up before he can say what he's trying to say, _maybe there's some way to get Irri back. Something we can do._ Because it does hurt to look at him. Sam, miraculously alive, but that big empty space beside him.

Sam just nods, whether he knows what Dean is trying to say or not, it doesn't seem to matter. They're both a little shell shocked now.

It's too long a drive to do all at once, and the thought of Sam taking the wheel makes him feel - weird. Sam doesn't offer, either. They stop at a motel in Iowa someplace. It's late, well past midnight, and Dean feels bone tired, weary all the way through. Sam waits in the car while Dean gets a room key. He usually does, but it feels different now.

Dean stumbles through a shower and comes out yawning. Sam is stretched out on one of the beds.

Bett is with him.

Dean sits down on the other bed, staring. His own dæmon is nestled up against Sam's side the way she used to do against Irri's side. Touching him, with never so much as a _do you mind_ to Dean.

Is Sam asleep? His eyes are closed.

His hand is on Bett's fur. Dean can't look away from that, Sam's big hand on Dean's dæmon's back - and her head, too, Sam's got such big hands. He's _touching her._ Dean can feel it.  It puts a shiver up and down his back. It feels good.

It's supposed to be wrong. He knows that. _Everybody_ knows that. What Dad would have done if he'd ever seen something like this, Dean doesn't like to think about.

Dad's gone, though. And Sam, his beautiful dæmon gone - Sam _needs_ to be able to touch a dæmon. Surely he does. And who else but Bett?

Two people can't really share one dæmon, though. Not in real life. That's a story thing, a mythology thing. About lovers.

He looks at Sam and thinks, _Are you really you?_

He's tired. He stretches out on his bed, but with Bett on the other one it feels ridiculous, like he's sulking, or like he was sent to sleep on a couch. The space between the beds feels like miles. Dean gets up and sits down on Sam's bed. Then lies down. He has to cross his arms over his chest like a movie mummy in order to fit, but there's kind of enough touching going on for him to deal with any more right now.

It feels like he's only been asleep for a minute when Bett says softly, "He's dreaming."

That wakes Dean up completely. He turns his head to see Sam's face. Sam is frowning a little, and the rapid motion of his eyes behind the lids is easy to see. Bett's right. Sam _is_ dreaming.

Dean sits up carefully, quietly, though his heart is pounding. Bett crawls into his lap and he hugs her tight with one arm. Her heart is pounding too, of course.

Whatever Sam's dreaming doesn't seem to be happy, but even if it's a horrible nightmare for him, it's a joy to Dean. It's proof. _Sam has a dæmon._ She's - invisible, or _something_ , but she's not lost. Or else Sam couldn't dream.

You _can't_ dream without a dæmon.

"But where is she?" he whispers to Bett, his breath stirring the fur on her head.

She gives an impatient wriggle that means, Don't ruin the moment.


	2. What about us

In the morning, Dean goes out and brings them back breakfast sandwiches and donuts and coffee. He's a lot hungrier today than he can remember being in weeks. The misery and tension leading up to the Big Awful was no better for the appetite than the miserable days after.

Sam must notice that Dean's attitude is different, but he doesn't say anything about that. Instead, as he eats (actually picking the bacon out, but Dean scoops it up and adds it to his hoard), he says, in that trying-to-be offhand-about-things way that Sam tries to do when he means We Need To Talk, "So you aren't gonna ask me?"

"Ask you what," Dean stalls, because he assumes this is about Irri, but Sam says, not looking at him, "About the Pit."

Oh. Dean sits back in his chair and feels his appetite wandering away again.

"I been down there, Sam. I know what it's like. I didn't want people asking me about it." _Didn't want to admit what we did down there in Hell._

"You weren't where I was," Sam says. And that's true. "Or with who I was with - "

He doesn't finish the sentence. Dean swallows. The sound is ridiculously loud.

"You _want_ me to ask?"

Sam looks up at him, and immediately Bett leaves Dean's side and goes to him. Without seeming to notice Sam gathers Bett into his arms and holds her to his chest. Dean can't stop staring. He puts the remainder of his sandwich blindly down on the piece of foil it had been wrapped in.

Bett looks at him. _Ask._

His mouth dry, Dean says, "What happened to you in the Pit, Sam."

He doesn't even pitch it like a question, it's more like a spell really. Or a trigger. It works like one.

Sam tells him.

It takes a while.

The whole time he's talking, Bett shivers, and Sam hugs her tight as though she's cold. She's not cold.

Dean's cold.

Dean has seen a lot of suffering by now and he definitely did not think before now that he and Bett had it worse than anybody. He knew better than _that_.

But he didn't think about this.

Time runs even slower in the Pit, for one thing. Dean understands that Sam is not exaggerating at all when he says each day lasted a year.

Trapped with a crazy, angry archangel. THE crazy, angry archangel. With a personal grudge.

How is Sam even holding himself together right now? With no dæmon there's no clue. His eye falls to Bett again.

Who's comforting who, here?

Sam says, "I won't wanna talk about it again. But I had to once. Sorry."

Bett twists around in his arms. Sam cries out, startled, as one of her claws rakes his forearm. Dean stands up so fast he knocks his chair flat on the floor. He reaches out and grasps Bett by the fur on her neck, yanking her away from Sam. Still twisting, furious now, she sinks her teeth into Dean's hand.

Dean curses at her and drops her to the floor, where she bares all of her many impressive teeth at him.

When he glances up at Sam, Sam looks shocked. _Sam_ looks shocked, when _he_ was the one cuddling somebody else's dæmon.

But he drops his gaze, because he knows Sam isn't wrong to be shocked. Normal people don't fight with their dæmons. Argue, sure, but not get physical.

That's a thing crazy people's dæmons do. Dean knows that. Everybody knows that.

"Sorry," he mutters. Like anybody hearing what Sam just told him is supposed to be sane.

Sam shakes his head a little, but Dean can't tell what he's saying No to.

They're more than done with talking. Sam has to bandage his arm. Within half an hour, they're back on the road.

Dean doesn't want any more violent surprises, not now, so he calls Bobby before they just show up.

"What do you mean he's back?" Bobby tries to make his tone flat but Dean can hear his voice shake a little. Fear? Excitement? Booze?

Dean tries to explain. Bobby gets impatient and makes Bett explain it to Theya. This is always so weird, letting dæmons talk on the phone. You can't hear either side, but they can.

Bett walks away, and Dean gets back on the phone. Bobby says, "But Irri's not there."

"No," hearing her name is like a punch in the gut, actually.

"I believe you that he isn't a Dust predator or a ghoul and he isn't still Lucifer. But Dean - what _is_ he? Do you think he's maybe a… a witch?"

"Bobby, there's so much wrong with that sentence I don't even know where to start."

"No, hear me out. It doesn't make any difference that Sam's a man, there were witch men. And it doesn't make any difference how long it's been since the witches all went wherever they went. What Sam's been through - there's lore about people becoming witches in the underworld. Because they're separated so far from their dæmons. What if Irri is still in the Pit? Still connected to Sam, but - far away? As far away as far away gets."

Dean thinks about it. But - "No." The things Sam told him today. If Irri were still suffering that, Sam would be insane. Frothing, or fighting, or catatonic.

"All right. Just get here. I won't freak out at him and make things worse."

"Don't soak him with holy water either," remarks Bett from where she has been skulking in the back seat, but Dean's already hung up.

Before they reach the familiar little patch of South Dakota, Sam speaks up when Dean thinks he's napping.

"Bett didn't mean to hurt me," Sam says softly. Dean glances over. Sam is leaning his head back, his eyes are barely open, looking into the distance. "You get too angry at her."

 _Like I can_ help _that!_ Dean wants to snap, but he doesn't say it out loud. Sam seems to be telling him that he _can_ help it. But more than this, the way he's talking... it sounds more like something Irri would say, even the soft tone.

"Okay," Dean says, and glances at Sam again. Is it Irri talking - somehow? How does he ask without asking? "I guess you're right. I dunno." It's uncomfortable. He's uncomfortable. In the back seat, Bett's uncomfortable.

But Sam seems satisfied with his answer, so that's okay.

Bobby opens the door for them before they've climbed the porch stairs. Theya stands there, looking gravely up at Sam, who hesitates, looking down at her.

"Hi Theya," he says, and visibly waits for her to reject him.

She's not Bett, she doesn't try to touch Sam. But she says calmly, "Hello Sam," and Bobby slowly exhales.

The feeling of empty space next to Sam persists, but otherwise, things are suddenly so normal that Dean powerfully craves a beer. Several beers. But nothing stronger than that, though Bobby's got plenty.

Bobby says as they eat eggs and bacon, "Have you talked to Cas?"

The look of guilt on Sam's face tells Dean that Sam doesn't know Cas came back. So there's that to tell.

Bobby, who was also very recently killed by Lucifer, says gently, "Lighten up, son. Cas got rebooted. We all made it out of that."

 _Not all,_ thinks Dean. _Adam didn't_. But he doesn't say it. Instead he says, "Didn't even think about Cas. I guess I'll - Cas. Castiel."

There's a longer pause than usual, but then Cas is there.

And looks not at all surprised to see Sam.

Turns out, he pulled Sam out of the Pit, and left Lucifer there with Michael and Adam.

"But you didn't get Irri," Dean starts to say.

Cas says, "You must understand. Lucifer did not release Sam willingly. Even if he had, it might have been the same. Possession by an archangel is of a different level than an ordinary soldier like me."

Not that Cas is still ordinary. He's been promoted, Dean knows. But not all the way to archangel. And he takes the point. They saw Jimmy Novak's dæmon return when Castiel vacated. She was an owl. He never heard what her name was.

But Lucifer, yeah. He was something else.

"Then goddammit, Cas, _where is she?"_

"Sam's dæmon is here," Cas says, gesturing toward Sam. "She's just - hidden. Inside him. Your dæmon knows this."

She does? But yes. Bett keeps touching Sam. She always touched Irri.

"But that's - " Dean's sentence stops short in his throat as Sam looks at him. Yes. There has been no question of Sam really being a Dust predator or anything else. This _is_ Sam. Irri _is_ in there, the way Sam was in there with Lucifer.

Sam says, "I'm grateful you pulled me out. But… How am I supposed to live like this?"

Cas tilts his head. "There are other worlds where this is true of all human beings' dæmons. The _spirit_ or _soul_ is an energy hidden inside. Like the grace of angels."

Dean shudders at the thought. "Well we don't live there."

Bobby says, slowly and reluctantly, "Maybe you could fake it? Say your dæmon's small, she's shy, she's a mouse in your pocket."

No one would believe that was the heart of Sam, thinks Dean. And none of the other ways the dæmonless fake it to pass among humans is going to work, either. Those only work at a distance. Hunters work up close. People's dæmons will know. Only dæmons who already knew Irri seem able to recognize Sam for who he is. Lisa's dæmon, who didn't, had been afraid.

"I am sorry for your distress," Castiel says to Sam. "I could not leave you in the Pit. I know of no way to make you two again."

He looks at Dean. "If I learn of anything that will help, I will return." He actually waits for Dean to nod in reply before he flickers and vanishes.

"He really _does_ suck at goodbyes," says Bobby, but Sam laughs a little. A good sound, a reassuring sound.

"For him that was a speech from Hamlet."

Later, in the spare room they've always used, as soon as Dean has shut the door, Bett jumps up on the bed and Sam, sitting down on it, pulls her into his arms, resting his cheek against her. Dean looks at them, then down at his own hands. He never touched Irri's fur. He never can, now.

_Was never supposed to, anyway._

But he wouldn't dream of saying anything to Sam about what he's doing right now with Bett. Because then Sam might stop doing it. And he needs to touch a dæmon.

Sam says, without looking at Dean or Bett, "I'm gonna have to go away and live alone."

"What," Dean says, and he can feel and see Bett go rigid in Sam's arms. She's like milk suddenly curdling.

Sam doesn't seem to notice. "Way out in the middle of nowhere, like the woods or the desert or something. Away from all other people. You saw Lisa. I'm not fit to be around them."

Dean feels light-headed all of a sudden, his mouth going dry. What. What the _hell_.

He can't talk but Bett can. "What about _us,_ " she says, and he _hates_ the needy tone in her voice, even though it's his own need talking and he knows it.

"You'll wanna go on hunting, right?" says Sam, dully, answering as though Dean had asked the question. "I could - get myself set up somewhere, and do what Bobby does. Research, internet stuff, pretending to be Agent Whatnot on the phone. I'd still be able to help you."

Dean doesn't answer. Sam finally seems to notice how weird Bett is acting and looks up.

Whatever he sees in Dean's face, his own face changes.

"Dean…?" he says uncertainly.

And Bett, _Dean's own Bett,_ huddles down in _Sam's_ arms as though for _shelter_ , as though he's somebody else completely, as if he's Dad, bursting in drunk and angry -

"Are you okay?"

Dean is shaking his head, maybe saying No, maybe trying to shake himself loose from that last idea. Maybe he's shaking all over.

Bett's not moving away from Dean. She's moving _toward Irri._ And she'd better do it now, because Sam is talking about _going away_ , being alone. Without Dean.

And they've just been through this. Much worse than this. Just days ago, he was letting Sam go to Hell, forever - but now, Sam's pretty reasonable plan sounds like the threat of never again. And it's _personal_.

Three days ago, Dean had been willing to let Lucifer-Sam beat him to death in the hope that he wouldn't have to watch what came after. Sam leaving him. Sam gone. And then Cas just healed Dean up and brought Sam back and now Sam is gonna _leave again._

Sam releases Bett onto the bed, gets up and takes a tentative step toward Dean. Bett is looking intently at Dean from behind Sam, but he only has a moment to see that before Sam is up in his space.

Sam is _hugging_ him. - Or trying to, because Dean is struggling, striving _not_ to be hugged. But Sam is huge, and his big stupid arms are long, and he's difficult to evade in a small room.

"Dean, stop," Sam is saying. "Please stop."

Stop _what?_ Sam is the one who's - Dean isn't doing anything, he's just standing here - he's just -

"Please, De. I won't. I won't leave you. Please stop."

He tries to catch his breath. Tries to. He's all stuffed up and streaming and _ugh._ Shaking. Ashamed. Can't stop. Not the tears or the noise.

He shoves at Sam. _Get off me, don't look at me._ Sam is not that easy to dislodge, though. "De," he says again, and that's not _fair_ , by the way, calling him that. "I won't. I swear. Never again."

Reaching out to push again, he ends up grabbing instead at handfuls of Sam's shirt, and knocks his forehead against Sam's sternum.

Irri is in there, hidden inside Sam. The first time Dean ever saw her, she was a firefly, a little light over the cradle. He'd had to come closer to see the baby. _This is Sam,_ they told him, _and this is Irria_ , and Bett immediately became a firefly too to say hello.

Dæmons have heartbeats, even though they're made of Dust and don't have real hearts. They have their other half's heartbeat. If he or Sam touched Bett right now, they would feel Dean's own pulse thudding crazily inside her.

He listens to Sam's heart beating, ear pressed against his chest. He's listening to Irri too, though he can't hear her, he can't hear anything but Sam.

Sam rests his cheek on the top of Dean's head and Dean finally wakes up to the weirdness of the moment they're having here. This is going on really, really long for a hug between two _anybodys_.

Sam lets him go before he can start struggling. Dean backs up a step, looking anywhere but at Sam or Bett. His face is hot and he can't breathe through his nose. He makes a vague I'll-be-back gesture and ducks out to the bathroom.

While he blows his nose and washes his face, he can feel that Bett and Sam are talking, but he doesn't know what they're saying. Sam and Irri had sort of been able to do that sometimes - relay things while in separate rooms - but for all they tried and tried, Dean and Bett just didn't have that knack. She'll probably tell him, but he doesn't think he'll ask.

When he comes back to the bedroom, Sam is in bed, his back politely turned, and Bett is sitting on Dean's side, putting on a big toothy yawn for his benefit. Dammit - she knows yawns are contagious even when they're fake. It works on Dean, of course. He yawns, then scowls. Bett rolls onto her back like Well, I've done my job. Dean strips down to T-shirt and underwear, and gets in the bed with his back to Sam.

When they were younger, there were two twin beds in here, but they outgrew them so fast that Bobby had had to get one big one, all that would fit in the room. Sam's feet still hang off the end when he stretches his legs out.

They haven't shared a bed in a long time. But they did it for years, sleeping back to back like this, Dad in the other bed, almost always drunk, usually snoring. They learned to sleep through any kind of noise, living in cheap motels with thin walls. Those three weeks Dad left them in Minneapolis, in a fleabag of a place where the room next door was often used by one particular hooker whose parrot dæmon would screech and carry on every time she faked another orgasm.

Compared to that, sleeping at Bobby's is kind of a luxury if you like peace and quiet. Dean likes it fine, but he doesn't exactly know what to do with it himself.

He looks for Bett as he reaches for the switch on the light, wondering if she'll be with Sam, or with him maybe. But the answer is, neither. She curls up on the braided rug on the floor and gives him the beady eye, silently threatening to fake another yawn. He laughs a little as he turns the switch, then settles down.

Sam, who he thought would be asleep, says, "What's funny?"

Dean hesitates, then says, "Remember the parrot hooker? Minneapolis?"

Sam catches his breath, then starts to snicker. His back shifts against Dean's back in a way that isn't unpleasant. "'You're the best! Raaarrk!'" He tries to do a whistle, but he's laughing too much.

"Polly want a fifty," says Dean, and they both dissolve into stupid giggling.

It's nice, actually. Like being kids again. In the dark, Irri could be down there on the rug lying next to Bett, and everything is fine, and so quiet…

He drifts. He's comfortable. Sam is here, and for right now that is more than good enough. Dean sleeps.

The sound that wakes him up is very quiet. A whisper. Someone whispering. He opens his eyes to darkness.

"Stop," Sam whispers.

Dean turns his head slightly, frowning. groggy. Stop what, was he snoring? He doesn't think he was snoring, but how could he know? Anyway, if he had been, he's not anymore.

"Stop it. Please. Stop," says Sam, and Dean thinks maybe he's reliving the last few hours, talking to Dean. Begging him to stop _crying_. Dean's about to give a rough answer to that when Sam speaks again, still in that tiny whisper.

"No please no no oh god stop it stop, stop - "

 _Oh Jesus._ "Wake him up!" Bett hisses. She must be up on her hind legs next to the bed, her voice is right beside him.

He's already moving to do it, to shake Sam's shoulder, "Sam!"

He can feel the change when Sam wakes up, his shoulder and back go rigid under Dean's hand.

"You're okay," Dean says quickly. "It's okay, Sam, you're okay."  

It's such a stupid, insufficient thing to say at all, let alone over and over. It isn't even true. But at least it's his voice, something for Sam to fix on in the darkness. Sam gasps, loud, then goes rigid again. If Irri were here she'd be right with him, licking his face maybe, comforting him, warm and tangible for Sam to hold.

"Get up here and _help_ him," he snaps over his shoulder at Bett, but she doesn't move. _"Bett!"_

"No. You," she says, like a bratty little bitch, and he can hear her drop back down to the floor.

 _What_ \- ? Oh, _now_ she doesn't feel like it? Dean grinds his teeth, but his stupid dæmon's weirdness will have to wait. Sam is locked up and trembling and it's up to Dean.

"Sammy, hey," making his voice softer, "Sam, c'mon, you're okay, take it easy," the kind of stuff he used to say when they were little and Sam had nightmares - especially after the thing with the shtriga, Dean's horrible fuckup that almost killed him. Sam had only been six. And he hadn't known anything yet, about what Dad really did, and he didn't quite remember what had happened after, but his nightmares did. It had served Dean right to have his sleep shattered over and over by it. Sometimes he dreamt of it himself. The shtriga fed on the human half, not the dæmon - Irri had been a little bird, flapping helplessly in terror on the pillow next to Sam - Dean and Bett, guiltily returned from a half-hour's dubious freedom, stood frozen in the doorway until Dad and Trelle thundered in and saved them.

That had been a nightmare all right. But that was nothing compared to what Sam must be dreaming about these days. _He never let me alone for even a second,_ he said this morning. _He was on me all the time. There wasn't any limit to what he could do. Who he could be. His hatred for humanity is as big as a planet. And his craziness is like a moon around that planet. It's too big to understand. It's too much._

And Dean does understand, at least a little. That's the worst part. The ingenuity of Hell's torturers was also part of that crazy moon of Lucifer's. The heart of Hell was the Pit.

His Sam, trapped there. In that. To save everyone except himself.

He pulls at Sam's shoulder. "C'mon Sam. C'mere. It's okay. It's okay Sammy," and this stream of nonsense is interrupted when Sam kind of collapses and lets Dean pull him. He twists around in the dark and clamps onto Dean, tight, uncomfortably tight, and shaking.

Despite the change in size, they're kids again, in the dark. Sam had a nightmare about the shtriga. Dean holds him, rubs his back, tells him it's okay.

"It's not okay," Sam says.

"Yeah, I know."

"No you don't." Sam is sort of crying - no tears, Dean doesn't think, but the sound of them is in his voice and he's shaking so hard. Dean has to bite back another reflexive _it's okay_.

Instead he says, "I'm sorry."

Why do they both keep saying that to each other when all it does is hurt? Sam reacts like Dean slapped him. But he doesn't have very far backwards he can go before he'll fall off the bed. Dean hauls him back in. "Come on, take it easy, settle down and go to sleep. I'm here. Nothing's gonna get you." He's still thinking about the shtriga. He doesn't know what else to do, Bett won't help and he's got to make Sam calm down.

It had been easy to make Sam fall asleep back then, most times. Rubbing his back used to work pretty well. Stroking his hair. He always liked that. But Dean can't really tell if it's helping at all now.

Besides. Something already did get Sam. Going to sleep would just make him relive it again.

"De?" Sam whispers.

"What." Dean expects Sam to say something like that he isn't six and that Dean is full of shit and should maybe just shut up already.

"Don't push me away."

"What...?"

And then Sam shifts and

_kisses him_

right on the mouth,

just a little clumsy in the dark but absolutely, unerringly a kiss on the mouth, lips soft and warm, shaking like the rest of him. _Sam_.

Dean goes blank with surprise.


	3. Did the thing

Sam is crying for real: Dean can taste salt. He catches his breath, but Sam is whispering again. "Need you. You love me. I need - Please."

Sam needs - Sam _wants_ \- Dean waits for revulsion but doesn't feel that. He knows he's supposed to feel it. It just... never seems to arrive. He's _scared_ \- heart racing - but - this is Sam, and he loves Sam. Sam wants to cross _that_ line, which they've been leaning on for so long now. Sam already crossed it, and he needs - what exactly - Love. Touch. Dean was already doing that - but Sam told him what happened in the Pit. _He was on me all the time._ And not with _love_.

Sam kissing him, after pleading not to be pushed away.

As though Dean could push him away, as though Dean weren't the one who stood crying like a little girl at the thought of Sam living somewhere else. Without him.

And now he understands why Bett left this to him.

He touches Sam's face, finds it wet, wipes tears from his cheek with his thumb. Then he kisses him back.

The moment he does, Sam makes a sound, a low moan that seems to cut through Dean.

They're _not_ kids, they're grownups, grown _men_ , lying all tangled up together in one bed like it's nothing, until it isn't nothing. Sam is alive and big and _male_ and he wants things Dean has _no_ idea specifically what.

What the hell. Really what the hell. They're crossing _the line,_ he can't be bothered to draw any _more_ lines. It's not like he wasn't down there in Hell himself. It's not like he doesn't understand the difference.

It's not like he doesn't want Sam. Because it turns out that he really really does. And that means that it's nothing new, certainly no surprise to Bett. And it shouldn't be to Dean either, if he felt like telling the truth. All those times Sam _touched her_ and Dean didn't say a word about it because it felt good.

This feels good, too. Sam's mouth under his, those big warm hands on his back, pushed up under his shirt. Then the disorienting twist in the darkness when Sam decides Dean is the one who should be lying on his back with someone on top of him.

Dean almost panics at this, but. He _won't_ push Sam away. He can't. Well right now he can't. Sam is _heavy_.

Sam's hard, and it's obvious at the same time that both of them are. Sam makes a sound that's just breath but seems like a word. Like _Oh, good. We're both perverts._ Dean wriggles underneath him like _Yeah, check it out._ He plucks at the T-shirt Sam is wearing until he lifts up to pull it off. Doing this grinds them together below the waist and Dean whines a little.

He's so grateful for the darkness of the room. Neither of them can see a thing. Bett can see in the dark, but she's not looking. If Dean could see in the dark, he's know what Sam is doing, but he can guess: taking it all off. Then Sam's fingertips are hesitating at the waistband of his boxer briefs.

"Can I," he starts to say, and Dean doesn't say anything, just lifts up to help and Sam takes them off.

He's never been this naked in his life. The darkness is a mercy, none of this could have happened or gone on happening if it wasn't for the total darkness. Dean can't even imagine what this would look like - even the threat of imagining it makes him want to recoil, his brain snapping back so hard he could give himself a concussion from the inside.

"Hey, uh," he starts to say, but before he can get any further Sam's mouth is on him, clumsy and wet - Sam's mouth - on Dean's cock - and he lets out a strangled yelp of surprise.

"Shh," Sam says, because Bobby is somewhere in the house. He says it right against Dean's cock, like he's telling _it_ to shush. And then he sucks it into his mouth _hot and wet_ and Dean has to clamp a hand over his own mouth because it's both so good and so wrong - so not what he had intended at all - that he can hardly keep himself from saying No. _This_ is what Sam wants?? But - surely  -

Dean can't _think_ , his thoughts are breaking and twisting around like a kaleidoscope against his tight-shut eyelids. Sam is sucking him, it's _so good_ and why is he _doing_ it, why is he doing things he shouldn't have to do? He moves his hand from his mouth, whispers, "Sam," but it comes out differently than intended. Softer and slower. He reaches down to stop Sam but just ends up touching his hair. Sam hums a little, the vibration curls Dean's toes.

From under the bed, Bett is nudging at him. _Tell. Say._ He tries to ignore her but she won't let him.

Dammit.

"Love you," he says out loud, soft but loud enough for Sam to hear it.

Well, he didn't mean for Sam to stop what he was doing. But he does. Sam moves up and kisses Dean's mouth again, trembling, and then he shifts a little, what's he doing. _agh -_ he is _turning on the light_.

Dean recoils, clamping a hand over his eyes. Ow! His eyes are genuinely stricken, but more than this, they're naked and he needed that darkness.

It turns out that Sam needs the light.

"I need to see you," Sam tells him, his voice hoarse and his lips wet (with saliva that's also on Dean's cock right now, catching the light.)

Dean wants to object, but Sam said, _Don't push me away_. Dean didn't. And he won't.

"Okay." It comes out sounding a little sullen, and he tries again. "Okay, Sammy."

Of course, now the light is on, _Sam_ gets embarrassed. He glances down like he's remembering what he was just doing and he licks his lips, looking back up at Dean like he's been caught doing something wrong.

Well. Anyway.

It doesn't look like Sam is going to get back to that, but that's okay because Dean isn't sure he's ready to look at that, no matter how good it felt in the dark.

"Can we, can I, like… Lie down behind you?" Sam asks.

"What, like spoons?" Yeah, it makes sense. Dean turns on his side and Sam fits up behind him, his skin smooth and hot and naked against Dean's back.

"You're the little spoon," Sam cracks, and Dean knew he was gonna say that and fires back, "I'm the _big_ spoon. _You're_ the _huge_ spoon."

And speaking of that, yikes. Sam settles fully up against him and his cock is hot and silky and it feels _enormous_ back there. "Hey uh, I don't know if - "

"Relax, I won't. I wouldn't." Sam puts his arm around Dean. His breath is tropical on the back of Dean's neck.

Dean relaxes back against him, and it feels unexpectedly awesome. Sam is half wrapped around him and so although the light is on, it's not like a spotlight on the show. He can turn his head and look at Sam, or close his eyes and rest his head down on Sam's arm - it's a firm pillow. Really firm. Sam is a _bookworm_ , does he have to be built like a superhero?

It's not a complaint exactly. Just, damn.

Sam rocks against him and instinct rocks Dean back against Sam. It doesn't really do anything for him directly, but the idea of it is hot and bothering and he's so turned on now that he's shaking, and then Sam's hand is wrapping around his cock and Dean gasps, _loud_ , then remembers that he needs to be quiet and stifles himself with his hand.

"De," Sam says, very quietly, against Dean's neck, and Dean very quietly loses it.

It's not fair when Sam calls him that, because that was Sam's first word. Not _Da_ as in _Dad_ , but _De_ as in _Dean_. It's - Dean can't call it anything but baby talk, and anytime Sam says it it goes right to Dean's heart. It goes there now, and also other places. It's so hot it _burns._

"Sammy," gasped between his teeth. "Oh god, oh my god, baby - "

He didn't mean to say 'baby', it just came out, and Sam is so gonna rag on him for it later - Or maybe he won't. Because it seems like it hits Sam the way 'De' hit Dean. Both of them lose it, desperate, clutching at each other, shuddering. Sam is rutting up against Dean's ass and jerking Dean off and biting the back of Dean's neck and it's too much for anybody.  He comes like he's been thrown out of an airplane. His whole body bows back in shock at how total it is.

And the sounds Sam makes as he shudders, and the hot pulse of his come on Dean's skin. Jesus. Dean has long since forgotten the light is even on. He doesn't even know from gravity. He's just floating here, mind blown.

From very near by, Bett says, "Get a towel or you'll be complaining later."

Dean turns his head. Behind Sam's head, Bett's head. She was curled up behind Sam's neck on his pillow. When did she get on the bed?

In the middle of all that, duh.

"Jesus, Bett," he mutters as Sam lets go of him and sits up. Sam gets his shower towel from where it's hanging on the doorknob and wipes off his hand, then brings it to Dean to clean up his back. Dean's blush extends over his whole body, but he submits to this, because Sam SHOULD be cleaning that up, it's the least he can do.

"Calm down," Bett says, as Sam drops the towel on the floor and climbs back into the bed over Dean. His nakedness is so well lit as he does this that Dean shuts his eyes after the fact, too late.

Sam turns the light out, and now the darkness is like a thing that pounces on Dean.

"You okay," Sam asks, in his I'm-Not-Interrogating-You-I-Just-Want-Some-Answers voice.

"Yeah," Dean says, in his Everything's-Fine-Why-Are-You-Asking-Me-Stuff? voice. It sounds fake even to him.

"Can I put my arm back?"

"Yeah," and that voice is almost normal, because he means it this time.

Sam settles up behind him again, his arm around Dean, the other one settling up over Dean's head along the headboard. Dean squiggles around a little, then ends up with one hand on Sam's arm.

"Bett," he says, just to find out where she is.

"What."

She's right behind Sam, probably snuggled up to the back of his neck.

"Rude."

She just makes a rude noise in response.

"I don't mind," Sam says drowsily.

No, thinks Dean, why should we mind her being a pervert when we're getting our incest on?

"He's freaking out," says Bett. Sam's arm tightens around Dean.

"Shut up!" Dean snaps, but she doesn't even bother with the rude noise this time. Technically she does shut up, but not because he told her to. She's already told on him anyway.

Sam says, "She wanted to be near me while we, while uh, you and me -"

"Did the thing," Dean mutters.

He feels Sam pull away a little, and tightens his hand on Sam's arm. Sam hesitates, then settles down again.

"Yeah. You know how dæmons are when their people, ah, _do the thing_ \- "

Dean was already regretting saying it, now that regret is a lot more intense. "Well usually they stay out of the way."

"They stay _together_. She didn't want to be in our way, she wanted to be with Irri."

His hand tightens hard on Sam's arm when he hears Sam say her name. Sam sounds so sad. Dean forgets all about objecting to Bett. "Can you feel her? At all?"

"I don't know," Sam says, sounding miserable now. "I believe what Cas said, but…  I can't see her. Can't touch her or even _talk_ to her. I miss her." He's resting his face against Dean's back, so his voice vibrates Dean's chest when he talks. "For a minute there… when Bett was leaning against me, you know, during… I almost. Almost could feel something."

Dean lets go of Sam's arm and twists around to face him. He slides his arm around Sam and his hand finds Bett's fur.

So now they're all together.

"How about now?"

Sam catches his breath, but he doesn't say anything. He goes still like… like a guy with a hummingbird or a dragonfly that just landed on his hand, and he's trying not to scare it away.

Bett makes the sound she makes when she's happy - a sort of growl that's almost like a purr (but if he _called_ it a purr, she would bite him.)

Sam closes his eyes and smiles so sweet, Dean can hear it in the dark. He keeps his own mouth shut to stop himself from ruining the moment.

He doesn't think he can fall asleep like this, but he does almost immediately.

The thump on the door wakes him up like a bucket of icy water. Bobby doesn't come in, he never has, he's just thumping the door as  he shuffles past to say 'coffee soon.'

Dean turns on the light and looks to Sam. Still sleeping. There are no windows in the room, the light is exactly the same as it was last night, but both of them seem like 500% more naked now to Dean's eye.

Bett looks at him from where she's nestled in the curve of Sam's neck and shoulder. Dean sighs.

_I know. Don't freak out or you'll freak him out. Don't push him away. I know._

Bett blinks at him, then starts nuzzling Sam awake.

***

When Sam opens his eyes, Bett's nose and whiskers are the first things he can see, then beyond her, Dean, up and hunting around on the floor, presumably for his underwear.

Everything that's happened until now moves through Sam's mind in a rush. And even so he can't help looking around for his dæmon though he knows she isn't there, and not seeing her is a constant dragging pain like a toothache in the heart.

Bett nuzzles the top of her head under his jaw, and Sam smiles a little, because it does help. His brother's dæmon is fierce and very, very sweet. Like Dean.

"What time is it," he yawns. He doesn't actually care what time it is, but it'll get Dean to talk.

"Five minutes till coffee," Dean says, now in underwear and putting on his jeans. He looks up. Because he's standing so near the light, his pupils are constricted and his eyes are so green they hardly look real. "You okay?"

Sam sort of nods and shrugs at the same time, "I was gonna ask you that."

" _I'm_ okay," Dean almost snaps back.

Well, so that's how it is today. But Dean _is_ looking him in the eye, and when Sam gets out of bed he looks Sam over with appreciation and a hint of a smile before turning away to dig a fresh shirt out of his bag.

He's not pretending it didn't happen.

He's a few minutes behind Dean in getting downstairs to the kitchen. The smell of coffee has been joined by the additional aromas of bacon and toast. Bobby looks up from his obsessive tending of the bacon to nod a greeting. Theya, sitting by his side, blinks at Sam. Sam wonders suddenly: _Does she know?_

If she does, she probably won't tell. Dæmons don't usually do that. But the idea of her knowing makes him self-conscious. If he could ask Irri… But he can't. He can't.

Dean comes in from outside, whatever he was doing out there, and Bett with him. She comes right to where Sam's sitting down at the table (out of Bobby's way), and he casually scoops her up in one arm and holds her in his lap.

"Sleep okay?" Bobby asks, still poking watchfully at the bacon (he hates curled edges). Sam looks up and meets Dean's eyes for one moment.

"Like a baby," Dean says. "Sam didn't snore for once."

" _I_ don't snore," automatically. "You're the one that snores like all three Stooges." But the word _'baby'_ goes up one side of Sam's skin and down the other, leaving shivers in the wake of the memory of Dean calling him that last night.

"Ah, wise guy," says Dean in a Curly voice.

"Too early for this crap," Bobby mutters to the bacon.

Once breakfast is on the table and everyone's had coffee, Bobby tells them he's had an idea.

"This might be a long shot, but you might try the thaumaturge."

"The what now?" says Dean, but Sam knows the word. He's never heard it said aloud, just seen it written down.

"It's a kind of magician," thinking on his feet, he knows Latin so much better than Greek, an occupational hazard. "A... 'miracle worker'?" Bobby points at him, nodding. His mouth is full of bacon.

"What, like a _faith healer,"_ scorn dripping from Dean's words like butter dripping from his toast.

Bobby shakes his head, swallowing. "Not like religious miracles. _Thaûma_ can also mean 'marvel' or 'wonder'. Just a _really_ powerful magician. She worked some pretty complicated mojo last year for somebody Rufus knows. Really specialized. If there's anybody that can help Sam, maybe - "

"What do you mean 'help'?" Dean's early on the defensive today. Probably to be expected, considering. Bett shifts in Sam's lap.

"Don't be dense, boy. To pull Irri out of him again, what else?"

Sam looks to Dean. When their eyes meet, Sam feels a jolt. Physically. It's distracting. This is serious business, it should be the most important thing to him right now, but he can't really seem to focus on it. Or on breakfast.

Dean breaks the spell by looking back to Bobby. "You heard Cas. He said there was no way."

"No," Sam says, "that's not what he said. He said _he knew of_ no way."

Bett starts squirming, and he lets her go back to Dean.

"Couldn't hurt to ask," Bobby says to Sam. "She hangs out a shingle in the Hidden Market. New moon's, what, next week. You've got till then to find it." The Hidden Market is always on the move: it might happen in the same place twice, but never twice in a row. Sam nods, mind already working on the problem.

Dean puts his fork down. "And what do we do about Sam walking around like this? If we run into other hunters there, and they think…?"

 _That I'm a monster._ Sam doesn't say it aloud, but Dean and Bobby both look at him as though he did.

"Play to the truth," says Theya. Everyone looks at her. She speaks so rarely. "They do not need to see her. She _is_ inside your coat."

Dean is frowning in incomprehension. Sam looks to Bobby, who is nodding now. "She's right. Play it like Irri is the size of, well, like Bett, and she's inside your coat. It's almost winter. It's cold. Maybe she's fancy and doesn't like her feet on the ground. Stick a pillow or a folded up shirt or something to make a lump that you protect with your arm. And just, you know, sell it. Theya's right, she _is_ in there. Hell, I could see her in your eyes just now."

Dean is starting to thaw out to this idea, Sam can see it in his and Bett's faces.

Bobby gets up to refill the coffee. "There's a thing or two you could pick up for me, if you _are_ going. Stuff for spells and what not. It'd help me out."

Sam is already nodding to this request before Bobby finishes making it.

Dean has picked up his fork again, which means he's on board, or at least considering it. "So how do we _pay_ this miracle worker?"

"Rufus said she's always on the lookout for all kinds of magical objects and rare ingredients. You'd have to talk terms. But the consultation's free. Just find the Hidden Market, and ask for Rowena."


	4. I miss you

They don't have to find it themselves. Bobby calls somebody and has the location within about twenty minutes of asking.

There's more than a week till the new moon, and about twenty hours' drive from here to there, so they don't really need to hurry that much, but Sam doesn't want to sleep under Bobby's roof again tonight.

They stop someplace in Missouri, and again Dean has to get their food and get the room key, because Sam's dæmon is hidden inside him and he has to hide himself in the car. He's become so used to having Bett near him that he feels it keenly when she goes with Dean.

Alone in the car, he says, "I miss you."

But it doesn't even feel like he's talking to his dæmon, it's more like just plain talking to himself. To no purpose. It doesn't comfort anybody. He rubs at the center of his chest with the heel of his hand. _I miss you._

Dean returns with the room key and Bett gets into Sam's lap as Dean parks the Impala down at the end - near their room but not right in front of it. Sam carries her in, glancing reflexively at Dean, but Dean never objects to this touching, he acts like it's normal. And why wouldn't he? Dean has had to share everything with Sam since Mom died. Maybe it is normal to him.

But not everything is.

Things seemed okay this morning, but hours in the car not-talking about it has created a wall of tension. Only Bett seems relaxed. It's actually a little freaky, the disconnect between her and Dean, who is generally out of alignment today. One shoulder higher than the other. Tilting his head to look at something, and his gaze shifting sideways. Guilty.

Sam hugs Bett a little more tightly.

They eat. The food's a little cold already, but that's so common in their experience that it isn't worth remarking on. Dean unbends a little with approval when Sam eats with gusto. He's always been like that, but there's also the fact that the dæmonless have no appetites.

When Dean goes to take a shower, Sam nudges Bett to go and be near Dean instead of staying out here in the room with him. The distance is so small it hardly matters, but he's starting to feel selfish, that he's hurting Dean by leaning so hard on his dæmon. Irri is here with him, within him. By keeping Bett with him he leaves Dean all alone.

Dean and Bett come out and Sam goes in. As he washes in the shower, he wonders if he should maybe… get himself off now and reduce some of the tension. Dean might not let him… let this… let Sam…

The water decides No for him by turning cold. He rinses his hair, shivering.

When he goes back out, Dean looks much better. He and Bett are close together, and some of Bett's relaxation seems to have flowed into Dean. He's not holding himself crooked anymore, and he looks Sam in the eye. For a moment, anyway.

Then Dean looks away - but he's blushing, at least. Not cold, or closed off. Not 'No.' Of course, Sam should have been able to tell that just from looking at Bett - but Dean and Bett don't always agree.

When he thinks it out like that, it sounds… Bad.

When Sam was about eight or so, he saw a homeless woman crouching in an alley, clearly severely mentally ill, beating her own dæmon (some kind of little dog, or maybe a fox) with what might have been an old shoe. Hard. They were both crying. It had been the most awful thing Sam had ever seen, right up until he went to Hell.

Then: Dean, twelve, had taken one look and grabbed Sam's hand, pulling him away and talking really fast about something else, and their dæmons had stayed really close for a while after that, needing to be touched.

Now: Sam's fingers twitch involuntarily with the longing to touch his own dæmon, to pet her silky fur and lean against her. He misses her so much.

Last night, for just a little while, he'd been able to feel her. It was a fragile, elusive feeling. Maybe he didn't really feel what he thought he felt. Maybe it was just endorphins from the sex.

Instead of going toward Dean, he goes to the other bed and pulls the crappy comforter off. He's still dropping the heavy mass of polyester on the floor when Bett jumps across and settles herself down between the pillows.

Sam knows Dean will end up following her sooner or later. But he doesn't like the thought of Dean resenting her for that, so he looks back over his shoulder at Dean.

"Come sleep in my bed?"

That makes it an invitation. It gives Dean somewhere to go.

Dean blinks, then gives a short nod, and then glances around the room, as though to make sure nobody is watching. They've already done all the protections, that's always the first thing, as Dad taught them. Showering and sleeping (and anything else in the bed) are a hunter's most vulnerable moments.

Then he gets up and approaches Sam. He gets right up in Sam's space and says, "Just sleep?"

"No."

Then their hands are on each other's hips and Sam is leaning down to kiss Dean's mouth and Dean is pushing up at him at the same time, kissing with ferocity, with intent. They've both been thinking about this all day, that's clear enough.

Dean pushes him back so that they bounce down on the bed. Sam is on his back, and Dean's weight on top of him is both familiar and exotic, the unaccustomed feel of a man in his bed balanced out by the total familiarity of Dean, who has been the most important part of Sam's world since Sam's world began.

And Dean is good at kissing, of course, with his beautiful mouth, and he quickly gets the idea that Sam is pent up with wanting and sometimes likes things a little rough. Maybe more than a little, now he's with someone equal in strength, someone he trusts.

They kiss and bite a little and writhe a lot and it's fantastic until Dean pins Sam's wrists down over his head, and Sam goes cold.

Dean seems to get it immediately and lets him go, lifting up to look down anxiously into his face. Sam is already embarrassed and upset and he can't see his dæmon and now Dean will think he is an invalid. Dean will stop and pull back. Sam didn't mean to go cold. He doesn't even object to Dean holding him down, if his brain is asked its opinion. But his body said otherwise.

Dean says, "Come on and be the huge spoon again."

Sam knows what he's doing - or trying to do - pull things back to the familiar, put Sam on the outside so he doesn't feel hemmed in. It shames him, but he does it, because he needs the contact so much, and because Dean won't be able to see his face.

Bett has moved around during this shuffling. Dean settles down, Sam drapes his arm over him, and Bett tucks in behind Sam's neck. Her fur is warm and soft, and of course she smells like Dean. It's incredibly comforting.

He tries to think about what they were doing, to get the feeling back. But he can't stop short of the part where Dean's hands held his wrists down and it threatens to make him slide back into the Pit again. He can't get back to where they were just before. He wants to just shake off the reaction and get back to what he really wanted them to be doing. But it feels stuck inside him now. Like his dæmon.

"It's okay," Dean says, and Bett nuzzles the back of Sam's neck, but it's not okay.

And he knows Dean will be blaming himself, too, when it's so not his fault. It's not even Lucifer's fault, it's Sam's. He knows that. But Dean will never hear that.

He buries his face against the back of Dean's neck, a lot like what Bett is doing to the back of his own neck. Dean sighs. A good kind of sigh.

And suddenly it's okay again. The pressure in his chest eases and he breathes in Dean's scent and then he's kissing and licking the back of Dean's neck, and Dean's inhaling sharply and rocking back against him… Sam groans, and sinks his teeth into Dean's shoulder.

Then they're grappling again like nothing ever went wrong. He pins Dean down this time and pins his wrists over his head to see if it feels weird at all from the other side, but not only doesn't it feel weird, Dean likes it. He really likes it.

He looks up at Sam like Sam is the sexiest thing on earth, and moves his arms a little to test his grip, giving a little smile that's no more than a glimpse of teeth. Also he's as hard as a lead pipe. An emphatic vote for yes.

It is so good to be able to look at Dean, really look at him, and let Dean see him doing it. It's another thing Dean seems to like a lot, too.

He could have guessed that, Sam supposes. But he didn't. Dean sort of knows how pretty he is, in a completely cynical way. Sam has seen him use it shamelessly, time and again. It's pretty much a hunter skill. This is the first time Sam's seen him _enjoy_ it.

"What d'you want, Sammy?" Dean asks him. He's probably asking because of the way Sam acted earlier. That's all right. But then Dean says, "You can have anything you want." And there's obviously one thing Dean means by that. Sam actually blushes.

Dean is obviously pleased at the look on Sam's face. "Yeah?"

Sam can only nod. The thought of it. The very _thought_ of it - Dean's legs wrapped around his back, Dean making bossy demands in his ear, _harder_ and _more, Sam_ \- takes him by surprise with how intense it is, he's going to boil over, he's really really good at controlling himself but not now, not like this. Still pinning Dean's arms down to the bed, straddling him, Sam thrusts his cock against Dean's, throbbing, hot, both of them slick now from excitement. Dean never even looks surprised at this sudden turn, he's jubilant, egging him on. "God yeah, Sam - !"

Sam starts to stifle the sound rising in his throat, remembers he doesn't have to, and practically shouts as he catapults into sudden messy climax, coming all over Dean. Dean gasps loudly and Sam can feel intense throbbing and Dean's cock jerking against him, and then more wet heat smearing between them.

Sam, embarrassed, mutters, "Sorry," against Dean's neck. He releases Dean's wrists and Dean immediately puts his arms around Sam's back. "What for? That was awesome. Anyway we got plenty of time." After a moment he adds, "And we'll need lube, anyhow."

Oh, he's right about that.

They need more cleanup now, of course, but the shower isn't really big enough for one of them, let alone both. So they make quick work of it and get back into bed. Bett is half under one of the pillows, apparently asleep. Dean is looking sort of dreamy himself, eyes heavy-lidded and a little smile haunting his mouth. Sam is delighted to get to see it. Maybe nobody has seen him looking quite like this, because Dean doesn't have a history of lingering in the beds he gets into. This is Sam's alone. Maybe Dean could have been like this with Lisa. But Dean chose Sam. Sam understands this.

They go back to the spoons, and this time Bett is on Dean's side, so Sam can rest his hand on her fur. He thinks about Irri, wonders if she knows everything he knows, or if she's just a thing inside him now like his heart or any of the other essential organs.

Maybe this line of thinking made him tense up, because Dean says drowsily, "It's okay, Sammy."

Sam rubs his cheek against Dean's head. The short hair is soft against Sam's face, as soft as Bett's fur under his hand.

They move on the next day. The weather is good and while it would be nice to stay indoors and do nothing but have sex, they'll at least need a place with a decent sized shower. They have a huge diner breakfast on the way out of town, and Dean flirts with the waitress, who is old enough to be a grandmother (she proudly informs them that her grandson is working the grill). The grandson/fry cook gives a bored little wave through the window without looking up from the grill, obviously well used to this sort of introduction.

They also stop to buy a rather large bottle of lube, which has the added bonus of making Dean turn brick red in the CVS. He won't stay with Sam while Sam is holding it. He goes out to the car while Sam pays for it. Sam just laughs at him.

Predictable. But he'll be glad of it later, and Sam will make sure to make him say so.

Dean plays all his old tapes that day while he drives, one after the other. Creedence, Zeppelin, Metallica, Stones…  Sam wouldn't mind the variety of even crappy AM radio, but Dean's mood is too good to challenge the 'driver picks the tunes' rule.

Sam leans back in the passenger seat and smiles to himself while Dean sings along to "Gimme Shelter." Sam's left hand rests on Bett, who is leaning against Dean's thigh.

_I said love, sister, it's just a kiss away, it's just a kiss away._

Sam never noticed that lyric before. Or at least, he never thought Mick Jagger actually meant his sister, any more than songs from the 70s referring to women as "mama" were actually talking about their mothers.

But that's how it is when something's on your mind. You see examples of it everywhere. Sam is very glad he's not Dean's sister.

They don't talk about it at all, but Dean passes by several examples of the usual caliber of motel and gets them a room somewhere nicer. He glances at Sam as though he expects Sam to make some kind of crack about it, but Sam is hardly going to criticize. For one thing, they'll both be able to fit in the shower, and for another, the walls in this place should be a good bit thicker.

Sam can't avoid being seen by a few people, but he has been taking Bobby's advice and playing shy, pretending his dæmon is small and hiding inside his coat or in his shirt. It makes him look a little odd, but nowhere near as odd as having no dæmon at all. And of course, ordinary people are far more willing to assume the dæmon is there than to assume anything else. But Sam knows he couldn't get away with this in summer heat.

He also doesn't try to get away with it in a nice restaurant, though Dean wants to go. Sam starts to wonder if Dean is seeing this as a _date_ \- which is fine with Sam, in fact, though he knows better than to ruin it by saying the word. Maybe Dean will be able to relax after a while. Sam must be sure not to freeze up again.

Instead they order room service on yet another fraudulent card, so Dean can have his steak after all. Sam watches him eat it and smiles to himself every time Dean's tongue makes an appearance, licking his lips or his fingers or the fork. He starts to suspect Dean is playing it up, but he's hardly going to complain about it. Sam's got his own meal, anyway. And they've got a room with just one king sized bed, all theirs.

Bett leans against Sam's leg, and he smiles at her. Even as he does so, he feels a pang of loss not to be able to do the same with his own dæmon. And then he feels ashamed not to appreciate Bett's kindness.

Sam looks up to find Dean watching his face, and he blushes, looking away. "I'm fine," he says without even being asked any questions.

"Okay," says Dean, very obviously trying hard not to interrogate Sam over every change of expression on his face.

Despite their plans, they still act like any other night in any cheap motel with two beds in the room. They shower separately, and Dean even has a t-shirt and sweatpants on when Sam gets out and stands in the doorway with a towel around his hips.

Sam just lifts his eyebrows at him, and Dean blushes as though he's been caught with questionable porn. "I didn't wanna assume," he mumbles, and Sam feels a pang of guilt, remembering that he's the one who kept changing the rules and Dean never complained. Dean only said, _It's okay._

Bett is curled up on the bed, clearly enjoying the nice sheets, as she's pulled and twisted them into a sort of nest for herself. She's not asleep, but she's supremely relaxed. It's a good sign.

Sam slowly unwraps the towel from around his hips, and smiles at the look on Dean's face. Dean swallows visibly, then pulls his shirt off.

Sam has never especially minded the tattoo on himself, though it caused him some awkward explanations at a high school or two. (At college he just pretended to be a pagan.) But looking at Dean and seeing it there, Sam aches at the thought that it needs to be there at all, marring Dean's skin in a way his freckles, which are part of him and are adorable, never did.

But of course, the thought of Dean and Bett invaded by a hellion is even worse. Black smoke pouring into them the way Lucifer poured into Sam, poured in and overflowed and would not stop and would not stop and _choked him and drowned him with how much he would not stop -_

Dean is in front of him, talking to him, but Sam can't hear what he's saying. He can read his own name on Dean's lips, but he can't hear it, and Dean must be talking pretty loud, he's scared, his eyes are scared. On the bed, Bett is sitting up, her eyes are wide.

Sam tries to say "Dean?" but he can't seem to hear himself, either. Is it panic? Is he panicking? His heart is pounding. His dæmon is inside him howling to get out.

He's sitting down on the edge of the bed. Dean is holding him by the shoulders, gently pushing him to sit, and he's obeying, numbly. There's a roaring in his ears like the ocean. He presses his hands to his chest and whimpers. That, he can hear.

Bett has come to press herself against Sam's side, and he reaches out blindly to touch her, her soft fur prickling against his fingers and his palm. Dean sits down on the other side with his arm around Sam's back, and then they wait, because it's obvious that there's nothing else to be done. They are warm and he can feel the synchronous pulse between them. It soothes him, slowly. He is shivering by the time he has control of himself and his senses are working again.

"I'm sorry," he says to Dean. "I don't mean to. It's hard without her," even though he knows he isn't without her, that he's lucky, that Castiel might have pulled Sam out and left Irri in the Pit but he didn't, that Sam is still human even if he looks like a monster.

Dean tugs him to lie down, pulls the covers over him so he can stop shivering, though it's not really physical and doesn't stop until Dean gets into the bed with him.

This time Dean is the big spoon - or the huge spoon - whichever spoon is on the outside. Sam is grateful. He needs it, needs to close his eyes and feel Dean's arms around him and feel all the way into his bones that it's okay, as Dean keeps trying to tell him.

Neither of them falls asleep for more than an hour. Sam keeps twitching, and Dean keeps trying to reassure him, until Sam says crossly, "Shut up," and Dean grumps back, "Hold still then."

Sam holds still, and Dean shuts up, and they fall asleep in the end.

They stay another day this time. Again, they don't talk about it, but it's obvious that's what they'll be doing. Sam can't even resent it, as he wakes up late the following morning and Dean is still asleep behind him. Bett is a warm ball of fur against Sam's chest and Dean's arm. He smiles a little to see it.

For the first time, he wonders if the thaumaturge will really be able to help him, and what he's going to do if they find out that she can't. That place in the woods is starting to sound better and better - if Dean can be persuaded to agree. If it's the two of them together, Dean might even like the idea.

When Dean wakes up, they order more room service. Unfortunately, the breakfast they eventually receive is disappointing and Dean throws his soggy toast down in disgust.

"It's just not the same without an old lady to flirt with," smirks Sam, but Dean just shrugs. "She gave me extra bacon! She said I was adorable."

"You _are_ adorable," Sam says, and gives Dean his bacon. It's cold, but Dean is glad to accept it.

Hours later, it's as though a reset button has been pushed and while they're not technically on a hunt, Sam finds himself researching dæmonological medicine, history, magic, even reading an academic paper on the properties of Dust.

He can feel Dean watching him, but he tries to tune it out. There's no point in his trying to predict what will make Sam shut down. Sam doesn't know himself. It's random trains of thought that lead to the great big terminal downstairs.

There's plenty of upsetting history in this area, naturally. The dark ages of intercision. Sam aches inside at the very thought of it, and only later when he's distracted does he realize that that ache was his dæmon. It's the only time he's been able to feel Irri without any assistance, and she's aching at the idea of being separated from him.

He rubs the heel of his hand against the center of his chest, and reads on.

"Sam," says Dean after a while. He's said it more than once, Sam knows, but he has a hard time tearing himself away from the horrors of history. Bett nudges his leg, and finally Sam surfaces.

"Should we head out?" Dean asks, gesturing around the room. They're not using it really, that's true. They could be closing the distance to the Market's next location.

Sam closes the laptop and looks at Dean. "We ought to use the bed before we go. They're just gonna change the sheets anyway."

Dean looks interested, but cautiously now. Sam has made that happen with his episodes. Again, only himself to blame.

"I think I'll get better with time," he says softly. "You did, when you came back."

He knows Dean wants to say that it's not the same. Dean might have been in Hell longer, but between one thing and another, Sam's experiences are more immediate.  

But Sam is the one who started this in the first place, and he knew what he was doing, and he still does. He needs Dean more than ever. And it's obvious as it can be that Dean needs this too.

"Okay," Dean says, and comes closer to where Sam is sitting at the table. He reaches out and touches Sam's hair, which is surprising. At least, it's surprising when it's not accompanied by a plea or threat to cut it.

It surprises Sam that it feels so nice. He closes his eyes and hums a little. Dean, encouraged, uses both hands. Sam turns toward him in his chair and leans his head against Dean's chest.

It's a lot like something Irri used to do with him, come to think of it. Leaning her head against Sam's chest. To his mortification, Sam feels tears springing to his eyes at the thought - but it's not the same as freezing up. It doesn't disrupt everything.

"Come on," Dean says softly, tugging at Sam's arm. Sam, dreamy and relaxed, gets up and shuts the laptop, following Dean to the bed.

He doesn't freeze up again. Everywhere Dean touches him, he feels warm. Connected. Bett is on the bed again, near but out of the way. Dean lies tangled up with him and acts like they have all the time in the world.

Sam finds the lube and tries it out on Dean. He still expects Dean to bluntly reject doing any such thing, but this expectation goes unfulfilled. Dean has had this kind of thing before voluntarily, fingers at least. And he knows he likes it. It's probably another Rhonda Hurley story, but Sam doesn't care. Dean has eyes only for him and he knows it.

"C'mon, Sam," he whines after a while. "C'mon, I'm ready, I want it. Let's go."

For a moment, Sam seriously considers saying no, making Dean wait, making him come before Sam gets in him. But he doesn't think he has the patience himself. And the longer he makes either of them wait, the greater the possibility that some stray train of thought will make Sam ruin the moment.

So he says, "Okay, De," and they settle back into the position they've been mostly sleeping in, Sam as the 'huge spoon', only this time with his well-lubed cock sliding against and into well-prepared heat. Dean makes a strangled noise, and grips Sam's arm where it's wrapped around his chest, but after a few deep breaths he nods and his grip eases.

While they rock together slowly, Bett crawls around the pillow and settles herself against Sam's throat, and Dean's back - literally getting between them, which is admittedly weird, but not in an interfering way. She's curled up tight - she has no interest in watching them, she's part of Dean and she knows perfectly well what they're doing. She is doing this for Sam, so that while he and Dean are together, he can feel his dæmon too.

But her fur is soft, and that feels nice in and of itself.

After a minute or two Sam has patiently worked his cock into Dean and he clings to him, trembling, waiting for Dean to show it's okay. Sam is big, there's no way around that. Sam has had to learn patience in order to be accommodated, especially as his taste in women tends toward the petite. He would nibble on the back of Dean's neck if Bett weren't in the way. But that's okay. He's got one hand free to slide around and investigate Dean's nipples until he feels Dean's breathing change, get slower and deeper, and Sam knows he's about to get permission to move.

Dean says "Sam," in his deepest voice, very quietly, and Sam is so pleased with him for saying 'Sam' and not 'Sammy' that he slides his hand down and wraps it around Dean's cock.

It's not that he really dislikes Dean saying 'Sammy'. But it wouldn't have felt like it fit at a moment like this.

Sam, on the other hand, does fit. After a little patience. Dean rocks his hips and says "Sam" again,  demandingly. Even Bett squirms around against Sam's neck to denote impatience.

Sam begins to move, and Dean turns out to be able to make an extraordinary range of noises.

He tries to keep it slow but Dean won't let him. Dean keeps shoving back against him until Sam gives it up and lets Dean find out how rough he can be. Soon Dean is on his hands and knees and Sam is draped over his back, pinning him down and fucking him so hard that sounds of effort escape between his teeth. He waits for Dean to tell him to ease up, but he never does.

Dean has his arms braced against the bed and his hips are moving too, slamming back into Sam's, egging him on even at his roughest, when it's actually hurting Sam's hips a little to bang into him so hard.

"Samm," Dean is saying, practically crooning, and his arm is underneath himself, his hand on his cock.

He looks to Bett, sees her rolling around happily next to Dean's head, and finally understands he's not hurting Dean. Not doing any harm. Dean is _happy_. He is _making_ Dean happy. Something eases inside Sam's chest. His dæmon, he knows. She is still with him, still part of him.

Whatever has happened to him, whatever he looks like - Sam is still human.

He's human in the same way that his brother is human - several of the same ways, come to think of it, given everything. They're both damaged. Sam's is just more recent and harder to hide.

Dean comes before he does, which is satisfying in its own way. There's no longer anything even remotely strange about this - it feels as though they've been doing this forever. Sam, panting, praises him for it, tells Dean how good he feels. He's still in the midst of telling him when he can't go on anymore, it's too sweetly, sharply good to last - he cries out, his dæmon warm and present inside him as he clutches Dean and fills him up.

 _I'll do anything I can to bring you back,_ he tells Irria, silently. _But if I can't… We could live like this. With Dean and Bett. If we have to._

He wishes so much that she could answer him. Even just for a moment. He can imagine what she would say, but it isn't quite enough.


	5. Okay, good talk

Dean feels Sam fall asleep against him. He's sleepy too, but wide awake at the same time, staring into the semi-darkness.

Bett moves around from where she is behind his neck to settle herself against Dean's chest, under his chin. He doesn't begrudge one minute of the time she spends with Sam, but it still feels so good to feel her come back to him, to relax against her.

She's perfectly content for him and Sam to be like this. He doesn't know why he thinks she should be offended - she is him - but they don't always agree on everything anyway. Still, she loves Sam as much as he does. Just not in exactly the same way.

And they are in agreement. He and Sam, they belong together. Dean feels uplifted at the thought, at the certainty that they are going to put Sam right, Sam and his dæmon will be back as they should be, and they could go on with their lives - whatever kind of lives Sam wants them to lead for a change, maybe. They've done enough, they've given enough, surely. After what Sam did for everyone. Sam gets to have a say.

Dean feels pretty fierce about it. But he's fierce about it quietly, because Sam is sleeping deep and peaceful against his back and Dean likes it that way. Nightmare sleep isn't rest. Sam needs his rest.

In the morning, when they get up, Dean's pretty sore from last night's fun. He hates that Sam catches him wincing, because it's not like that. Sam didn't do anything wrong. It's gotta be totally normal for a guy to be a little sore after the first time. And Dean's completely on board with doing it again - but maybe not right away.

All he knows is, he's not going to ask Sam for anything that will bring him back to what happened to him in the Pit - not ever. Sam gets reminded of it often enough by stuff Dean can't possibly predict. Dean can at least do what he can about the ones he can see coming. And if Sam should offer something that's obviously draped in red flags, Dean can just act like he isn't into that.

They check out of the motel and move on toward their target. Bett sits between them in the front seat, sometimes leaning against Dean's thigh and sometimes snuggling in Sam's lap like a cat. Dean reaches out to touch her and Sam takes his hand. Dean allows it for a little while, until he needs his hand for the wheel ('power steering' having been a little bit of a technicality in 1967.) Sam rests his hand on Bett's back again and Dean smiles to himself. It's the same thing.

They have one more night before the new moon. It's a Sunday, and the little tourist trap of a town, now off-season, looks especially dead. At the motel, such a dinky, sad old place that it never even tried to have a theme when it was new, Dean has to search for someone to give him a room. They don't have any king rooms, either, just the classic old two-queens that's been the backdrop of most of the rest of Dean's and Sam's lives. It seems to take forever. By the time he gets back to Sam in the car, Dean is starting to feel real panic, that Sam being out of his sight was a mistake, even though they'd done it for a reason, because it was easier on Sam than faking his dæmon for every clerk at a motel or a convenience store. It's not like Sam can't pull it off, but Dean can tell it gets him down, a little bit more each time he has to do it.

He aches, too, with wanting to see Irri at Sam's side. Sam was so balanced with her, it was a pleasure to read them. A pleasure to look at them. And Irri and Bett still played together, pretty often for grown-ups' dæmons - _had_ played together, until.  

Sam looks up at Dean when he knocks on the car window, startled, and there's a look on his face… Well. Dean's still a little sore, but he wouldn't call it deal-breakingly sore right about now. Not when Sam is looking at him like that.

The room isn't as awful as Dean had expected. Somehow, they saved up all the nice for in the rooms, because there definitely isn't any on the outside of the motel or in the lobby. But the beds and the bathroom both seem pretty clean.

He is a lot less sore than he was. Really. Dean thinks maybe, once they get going, he might be fine. God knows the spirit is willing. But he hisses more than once when Sam is trying to get him ready, and then, spooning again, when Sam tries to push his cock in, Dean yelps and pulls away.

Then it's _Sam_ trying to apologize! Like Sam did anything wrong!

"No, _I'm_ sorry. I thought I could, I dunno, play through. My eyes were bigger than my ass?" Dean tries joking, though he's wilting with embarrassment. More than anything he doesn't want Sam to feel rejected. He wants to do it. It's just that this one thing has to wait. Sam snorts, at least, though it's nowhere near the strength of a laugh.

"Let me put it between your thighs," Sam surprises him by suggesting next. Dean hasn't done this himself, but after a moment the logistics of this are pretty clear. He moves his leg to let Sam do this, settling that big cock, iron hard and hot and slick with lube, between Dean's thighs, before letting his leg's weight back down.

"Squeeze a little. Oh fuck that's good," Sam groans.

Dean feels a little adrift - glad there's an alternate to what he's too sore to do, but not all that turned on by the process. The failed attempt had been quick and Sam had stopped immediately but it was still kind of a splash of cold water for Dean.

Sam's turned on, though, and that's hot to think about at least. Dean wonders where Bett is. She's not between them, but maybe she's behind Sam's neck.

Sam's hand is teasing at Dean's nipples, and Dean's not even paying enough attention to enjoy it. Then that big warm hand is sliding down his belly to find Dean's cock only partially hard. Sam's hand seems almost comically surprised by this.

"This really isn't doing anything for you," Sam says, dismayed.

"It's okay, I'm just... " Dean doesn't know how to finish the sentence.

"There's plenty of things we could do," says Sam, not sounding offended at all, but the tone of his voice is so close to Let's Talk About Feelings mode that Dean finds himself tensing up, ready to repel boarders.

"It isn't a big deal," he snaps. "I just felt stupid, all right, I do wanna fuck, I just," and he still can't finish the sentence. _I just can't take your great big cock without walking like a cowboy for days!_

"We could," Sam says softly. "Do it to me."

Dean doesn't have any idea what kind of expression he has on his face when he turns to look at Sam, but whatever it is, Sam does not like it. His face, which had also been in Feelings Mode, closes up like a trap. It happens so fast, Dean hardly has time to see it. Sam is pulling away.

"Or never mind," he's saying, with as much dignity as a guy can have when he's naked and has his cock in his hand. "Good thing you got us two beds, good night Dean."

And he's a lump under the covers of the other bed before Dean can even figure out exactly what just went wrong.

 _Bett_ , he calls out silently. She's under the bed, he realizes. She doesn't answer, and she doesn't come out.

Well - but - What should he have done, anyway? It would have been better to just grit his teeth and fake it, there's no other answer Dean can think of, because there was just no way he could do it to Sam, not after what Sam had been through. Just because he suggested it didn't make it a good idea.

But it's hard to go back to two beds - which he didn't even get on purpose, there just hadn't been any other choices - especially when Sam is hurting. He wishes Bett would go to him, but he's not sure if Sam would even welcome her right now.

And he wasn't even trying to do wrong. It just seems to be a natural talent Dean has.

Dean tosses and turns for what feels like hours. He only realizes he's fallen asleep when he wakes and Sam is suddenly there in the bed with him. Not snuggling up, but he did come back. It's better than nothing. He feels Bett climbing back up onto the bed, and Dean closes his eyes, finally able to relax.

In the morning, Sam is giving off a vibe of Nothing Happened, Don't Talk About It. Dean knows that vibe well enough on his own account. He doesn't _want_ to talk about it, except that he really doesn't want Sam getting the wrong idea about what did happen. It shouldn't have to be a big deal, he wants to say. I didn't mean anything against you, is another one.

And one he doesn't want to say, but it's just as true: I want to, but there's no way I could do that to you.

And it might not have as much to do with Lucifer as Sam would probably assume, he guesses, but it isn't worth thinking about anymore, because Dean would never say any of those things.

There isn't anywhere in the town to get a decent breakfast. There was a great place, they're told all about it by the slack jawed idiot at the gas station with the equally slack jawed chinchilla dæmon, but he waits till the end to mention that they're closed on Mondays.  "If they were open, I'd be there right now!"

So it's just the highway and McDonalds for breakfast, which never puts Dean in the best of moods, but at least the coffee is good.

Sam hesitantly puts his hand on Bett's back and clears his throat. "Sorry. About last night."

Before Dean can answer, Bett says, " _We're_ sorry."

"Okay, good talk," says Dean, but he says it in the right tone, because it makes Sam laugh, even if only a little. "So we oughta get to this Market by mid afternoon. What was it Bobby said he wanted us to get for him?"

"Oh - uh - I jotted it down, hang on." Sam keeps stuff like that tucked into his wallet. He fishes out Bobby's list. "Just two things. John the Conqueror root, and uh… royal jelly from fairy bees."

"Okay, what," says Dean. "Fairy bees? You're fucking with me. Or else Bobby's fucking with us."

"No, I've heard of them before," says Sam. "The bees aren't, like, fairies themselves that are bees, or anything like that. They're bees kept by druids, using magic instead of the conventional stuff people usually use to keep bees. Like - netting or gloves or smoke or any of that stuff beekeepers use to protect themselves, they use magic instead."

"Druid bee farmers," says Dean, in that deadpan voice Dad always used to use to show disbelief.

"Sure, why not?" Sam laughs. "Doesn't sound like a bad life. If you like honey."

Sam is laughing like normal now. So Dean keeps going. "I got nothing against honey, but I'm not the biggest fan of things that come in swarms."

"Well, they won't bring the bees to the Market, just the stuff they make from the stuff they make."

But Sam is wrong about that. When they do get to the Hidden Market - it's well named, because it's hard to find even for people who know it's there and know where to look - the bee farmers' tent is one of the first they come to.

The Market itself is more like a dinky village fair, one short street of closed-up shops blocked off by the double row of tents and wagons lined up on either side. The rows don't face one another, rather they're back to back, so that one would have to walk all the way around to see it all.

And what Sam is wrong about is that the druids did bring their bees. All of them, from the looks of it. They twirl around lazily inside a spherical forcefield of some kind, looking as relaxed as an aquarium of fish. Dean expects the whole thing to give him the heebie-jeebies, but it gets sort of mesmerizing after a minute, like a lava lamp.

In his arms, Bett says, "They're looking at us."

Dean's spine jolts up straight. What? Is she right? He can't tell. Are they looking at him and Bett, or at Sam?

Sam, meanwhile, with a rolled-up hoodie stashed under his coat that he absent-mindedly 'protects' with his arm as what Dean can only think of as a prosthetic daemon, is looking at the beekeepers' display of wares. There are twisty spiral honeycombs with a sign that says 'Fractal'. And fancy schmancy glass bottles full of whiskey-colored honey. Dean is just looking at the candles when he hears suppressed snickering.

Sam has his little list note out in his free hand. Dean guesses he must have just asked the women behind the table for the royal jelly. And for some reason, the druids are finding it hilarious.

"It's for a friend," Sam tries weakly, and that does it. One of the women breaks down laughing, and the other one helplessly rubs her back and waits for her to stop.

"Okay, what's it for anyhow?" Dean asks, sort of loudly, to break any remaining ice. "Is it like magic bee Viagra?" To Sam, "Does Bobby use magic bee Viagra? Or did he just send us to ask for it for fun?"

The laughing woman had finally gotten hold of herself. "It's - Well - it's a little embarrassing. Sorry, it's just that people don't usually ask for it straight out, there's usually a little bit of song and dance. And you two are so young, too."

They end up buying it for Bobby, in case he really did mean it, and if he doesn't, Dean is starting to get a little curious himself, right about now.

"Hey, uh. We're looking for someone called the 'thaumaturge', can you tell us where she's got her, I dunno, space or whatever?"

They look uncomfortable. "You mean Rowena? She's, well, down around the other end. Small tent with green curtains all around. You can't miss it." But it sounds like she thinks they _should_ miss it.

Sam says, "Do you… not like her?"

"Oh it's not that," one of the women says, so quickly that Dean suspects it's exactly that. It sounds to him a lot like when someone very nice is trying to describe a total asshole. "It's just…" She looks to her partner for help, holding her grey cat dæmon to her chest.

The second woman has a rooster dæmon, so Dean isn't so surprised she's more outspoken. "I wouldn't like her hearing that I said so, but she's not above, well, call a thing a thing, cheating her customers. Or other vendors when working out trades. She hasn't been kicked out of the Market, yet, but I wouldn't be all that surprised to hear she had been."

"She hasn't cheated _us_ ," the cat woman says, quickly.

"No, but only because she hasn't needed any of our stuff," the rooster woman fires back. Then, to Dean and Sam: "But I know for a fact she stiffed the hair-bones-and-tears guy out of a pile last season, and they won't even let her in the tincture tent anymore. I'm not saying she doesn't know her stuff. Just, word to the wise, be careful with her."

"This is starting to feel like a very special episode of the Addams Family," Dean says, as they work their way around the Market. Sam is looking at his little list again - how hard is it to remember a list with two things on it? There's a tinkling noise that Dean takes for windchimes until he sees what's making it: cages of glass spiders, making that windchimey noise as they scuttle around inside. Dean backs away as slowly as he can without looking like that's what he's doing. He doesn't have anything against spiders specifically, but the sound creeps him out once he knows what it is. Are they kept in the cages like that just to make those sounds? That seems even sadder than keeping a songbird in a cage.

Sam has gotten distracted at a table displaying samples of various runes and glyphs. Dean can see Enochian, and what might be ancient Sumerian, but he doesn't recognize most of the rest of it. The person behind the table is a scribe, apparently. Dean has to think 'person' because he can't get any idea of their gender at all. Not that it matters, really. He won't bother asking Bett, because dæmons just don't care about that kind of thing, and get pretty patronizing toward humans when they do.

The scribe is bitching to Sam about how most people who come to them for paying work only want it for tattoo art. Sam obviously got roped into this with his sympathetic face and manner, so Dean goes to get him out again by reminding him about his list, of all things. Sam shoots Dean a grateful look. The scribe - and their raven dæmon - get even more glum when it becomes clear that Sam and Dean weren't planning on buying anything, not even tattoo art.

The old guy with the herbs and roots is a crank. Dean spots that before they even get near him. Then Sam makes the mistake of just asking for "John the Conqueror root" and not "ORGANIC John the Conqueror root," and the herb guy is off and running. His dæmon is a parakeet that jumps up and down on his shoulder, screeching incoherently like a real bird while the human half rants.

"Don't just go calling that any old root, that's organic root, if you knew what we go through to do things right! No fertilizer - no pesticides - and no magic either!"

He's really loud. All of the nearby vendors have that pained look of Here We Go Again, and the other customers - there aren't many - shy away, giving the herb booth a wide berth. The one good thing is, the whole time he's ranting, he's wrapping up the ORGANIC root and taking Sam's ORGANIC money and making ORGANIC change. He's still ranting when Sam says awkwardly, "Have a nice day," and they edge away.

"Wow," says Dean, and Sam laughs, but only when they're out of the old guy's sight.

"That's gotta be a long story. That I don't wanna know."

They pass by more stuff. Jewelry, plenty of that. The tinctures tent that the bee druids mentioned. A lonely looking guy with a sign that says "ORRERY REPAIR." Somebody selling blood of various kinds, in little bottles. Another story Dean is pretty sure he doesn't wanna know. Same goes for the "Butterfly Art," which looks like it's all made from real butterflies. Bett doesn't like this at all and climbs up Dean's leg to be held in his arm.

It's Weirdsville, USA, in short. The ratio of creepy to charming has climbed really high by the time they spot the little green tent.

"Finally," says Sam, hugging the bundled-up hoodie under his shirt that's standing in for his dæmon. He's been doing a good job with this, but it's got to be a strain, Dean thinks. Sam's a big man with a big dæmon that strides at his side, taking up space, but now he's got to pull off the body language of a big man with a small dæmon... which is very different. Sam's childhood interest in acting is being put to the test now, all day, all the time.

It's hard enough among ordinary people, but here at the Market, Sam has to try even harder. Not that anyone is actively looking for Dust predators or other dæmonless things like that, but they're more likely to be aware of the possibility. Dean is glad that at least Bobby's short list hadn't included any kind of weird exotic blood, or anything else more darkside than magic bee Viagra.

This is taking too much of a toll on Sam. Sam's idea of living away from other people isn't such a bad one. They could do that. If this doesn't work…

A cute little bird flits past them and into the green tent.

Dean and Sam look at each other. Obviously a dæmon, and of course bird dæmons fly, but they're not usually out of their human half's sight. Bett doesn't have anything to say. She looks like she didn't even notice it.

"Hello," Dean calls out as they go in. The tent is just a little bit bigger on the inside - enough to make you think about making a TARDIS joke, but not quite enough to actually make it - but it's still pretty small, a little comfy consulting room with some chairs in it, a desk, various crap on a shelf. Dean's eye is dismissive of such things, though he's sure Sam is sizing up and identifying whatever the little red-headed lady in the nicest chair has lying around.

"Hello," she says, smiling up at them. She's older, pretty, smirking a little, but maybe that's the way her mouth is shaped.

Her voice when she talks is low and sweet, with a strong accent Dean can't immediately pin down, and it takes him a few sentences to be able to properly understand her when she's talking. She must be Irish or Scottish or one of those, the kind of people who speak English in a way so different it sounds like music. "I'm Rowena, and this is my Cori," she's saying, waving up toward the little bird dæmon perched on the back of her high-backed chair. He's mostly white with a grey back and black racing stripes, and built like a little songbird except for the tiny hawky beak. He bobs cutely when introduced.

"They call me the thaumaturge. I am one who communes with the natural forces and channels them to help the less fortunate." She smiles, "That is to say, the consultation is free. But if you're here for miracles, miracles do have a price."

By now Dean has gotten used to her accent enough to feel like he can at least read the subtitles. "Okay. I'm Dean, she's Isabett, and this is my brother Sam," he says, suddenly realizing it's awkward now that it's normally the time to mention his brother's dæmon's name. He should have skipped over Bett and pretended he had no manners, that would have been the smart thing to do, but he had been distracted trying to puzzle out Rowena's accent.

"And Irria," says Sam, solving Dean's dilemma but sounding hoarse and unhappy. Dean could kick himself for not thinking this through ahead of time.

Rowena raises her eyebrows. "She's inside your coat?"

"In a way," says Sam. "She's - hidden."

Just telling the truth about it to somebody, a stranger, even though that was what they came here to do, has Dean keyed up with adrenaline. Bett wants down out of his arms.

Rowena uncrosses her legs, grips the arms of her chair and stands up. Dean can tell she's trying to be cool about it, but the little bird dæmon looks very, very interested. He flies to his human's shoulder as she steps closer.

Bett moves closer to Sam at the same time. Rowena's eyebrows rise up a little higher, but she stops where she is. Standing up, she's definitely tiny, barely over five feet, but there's a big aura of power about her, which Dean thinks he would have noticed even without her reputation.

 _And don't forget about the_ whole _reputation, and not just her sales talk,_ he thinks, remembering the bee women and what they said about her stiffing people.

"She is, isn't she?" Rowena says to Sam, looking up at his face, then down at his chest. Sam has stopped pretending to hold his dæmon, his arms hanging down slackly at his sides. "Now how I wonder, did she get in there, giant boy? No, don't tell me," holding her hand up to stop them talking, though nobody was even about to try. "Doesn't matter, does it? You're from this world, I can tell that already. She used to be outside of you, like everyone else here. A great big dog, like an Irish setter…?"

Dean is impressed enough to feel relief at her competence. Irri was - is - a red golden retriever, but Irish setter is very close. For his own part, Dean couldn't have said what kind of bird her dæmon was. It's not like he knows the difference between a finch and a sparrow or whatever. He can tell blue jays… cardinals… eagles and buzzards. Maybe what she's got is some kind of mockingbird. Maybe it's the national bird of Wales or wherever it is she's from.

Sam has tears in his eyes, it must be a relief to be able to talk about her. "Yes. She's here, I know she's here in me, but - I can only feel her a little, sometimes." His gaze skates over to Dean, down to Bett, then back to the little lady with the little bird.

"I see," she murmurs, and she's looking right at Bett in a way that suddenly, Dean doesn't really like. They don't have to tell anybody this part, do they? The part where they're together isn't anybody's business.

But then Rowena is looking at him, and she doesn't even seem to be thinking along Those Lines. Which is good. He did already say that they're brothers. It was a reflex, he always does that when they're not being agents or rangers or whatever. She's saying, "Both of you are marked against hellion possession. May I assume you're hunters, then?" She says it brightly, not in an anti-hunter kind of way, and she already knows about the tattoos, so Dean nods.

"Good," she says, all businesslike now. "Because I think I can help you, but it'll be expensive, the ingredients for the spell alone, and I'll have to ask a little something for myself of course. Given that you're hunters, it'll be that much easier for you to fetch the things we'll need for your little miracle."

She writes them out a list of things that they're to bring her at the next Market in one month. She doesn't seem to need to consult any books, just writes it out from memory. Dean gives a low whistle when he sees it. "There's some big stuff on here."

"Big spells have big lists," she smiles at him.

Sam, looking over Dean's shoulder at it, says to Rowena, "And with these things, you can bring her out of me, like she was before?"

"Just as she was before, dear boy. Yes, I can. I know just how to do it. I'm sure she's eager to see you."

***

The two boys leave Rowena's tent, and her charms against entry reactivate. No one enters her space without her will. Cori, of course, can come and go as he pleases just as she can, and it was he who alerted her to the two customers outside.

And then there they were. Here in her own place, right in front of her, asking for her help. Exactly what she needs.

Rowena waits, holding her breath till she is sure they are gone, and not turning back with some last minute question. _Wait. Wait. Be sure. Be safe._

"They've gone," her dæmon tells her.

Then she startles him right off her shoulder as she lifts up her arms, dancing around with a cry of wild laughter. Coriarrian flies back to the velvet chair, watching her as she exults, twirling so that her hair and her dress stream out around her.

The dance isn't even in aid of a Working, or anything like that, though it calls up tendrils of power potential. She's just so _pleased!_

How long she's waited for an opportunity like this! How long has it been…?

That doesn't even matter, truly. Those whom she owes a visit are just as long-lived as herself. She has been able to wait, knowing that. And also because she's had no choice.

But now. Now she'll have a choice, won't she? Those two boys - now why did they claim to be brothers when they were so obviously lovers? when Rowena wouldn't have given a toss if they were both at once, honestly, who cares, she's seen everything - anyway - those two boys will come back, bringing her everything she needs. This spell is going to be her ticket _home._

She tires a little of dancing. Thinking of home… her steps slow. She'd be better saving her feet for dancing that spell, in any case.

"They had their chance," she says under her breath. "They all had their chance, didn't they, to come and find us, to say All is forgiven, to let us come with them. To beg us! Because we belong among them! But now it will be too late, and we're coming home to dance _vengeance._ "

She is speaking both to her dæmon and herself, but more to herself. Cori, as agitated as she is, keeps flapping up and resettling on the back of the chair.

"And after all I've done for them," the old grievances wrap around her like a ragged cloak she can't cast aside, "after all the power I conceded to be among them, and all the secrets I told, and after all that work and all that time, all my young years wasted in labor for others' gain - all - _all_ \- " There is a singsong rhythm to Rowena's words, these plaints are old, old, timeless old, she has been angry for so long that they've become a chant. Perhaps she has gained power from them. They are a pattern like any other kind.

Cori flies to Rowena's shoulder, trying to comfort her, but his claws prick her skin and she irritably shakes him off. Sulking, he flies up to his perch high above in the shadows, to the little thorn branch she has put up there for his collection. Several dead fairy bees are impaled there, skewered upon the thorns.

Cori is a dæmon, of course, and not a real shrike, and so he doesn't eat them, but in the time and place Rowena was born, dæmons were closer to the true animal nature of their form. It gives him pleasure to kill little things and impale them. And after all it's thanks to him and his roaming that Rowena knows very well that those gossiping busybody druid bitches tell tales behind her back. These are only worker bees, stolen unmissed, but, she promises him as an apology for hurting his feelings, before they leave this world he can have their queen for his nasty little collection. And why not? She's never coming back, but they'll remember she was here all right.


	6. That stuff works

They leave the Market, Sam now clutching the list even though he's already memorized everything on it and also snapped a picture on his phone. Some of the stuff Rowena wants is a tall order, but they have a month, and they have connections. They're even on the right side of the country for most of Dad's caches of stuff in storage units, which would be worth checking out for at least two things.

It feels good to have a purpose, a goal to focus on. Sam has to remind himself to act more like a man with a little dæmon might, and not stride along as though Irri were already back at his side. She will be. Soon. All they have to do is this.

Dean also looks more hopeful - his stride quick, with Bett running a few steps forward as they go back to the car. But he's still a little wary of Sam, and Sam thinks he knows why. He's made an attempt to apologize, they both have, they both always do, but Sam thinks maybe he can do a little better than that. He's got an idea.

They're on their way now to Connecticut and one of Dad's storage units. They could do the drive from where they are in one long night if it were urgent, but they've got a month to gather eight things and none of them are impossible, though any they can't rummage up on their own will definitely be expensive.

The day is a lot better than when it started out. Now that they are hopeful, their rhythm seems to be better with everything. They sail along one side of the highway while everyone going the other way crawls. Then they find a place to eat that Dean clearly loves. The walls are covered with a thick profusion of varying styles of artwork and photos. A real assortment of things that feels curated by a real artist, and not a corporate chain's idea of quirky decor that's the same everywhere you go.

Sam eats well too, though he's only got one arm to work with while faking a dæmon in his coat, which he can't take off inside. He endures this, because for all the hassle of faking it, Sam is getting tired of all takeout all the time. They're in a booth, so he doesn't get looked at too much.

Dean, looking around as he eats, says musingly, "Reminds me of someplace."

Sam glances up from his salad. "It's a lot like Lindsey's place."

"Huh…?" Dean frowns, completely blank.

"Where we got our tattoos."

Dean's head rocks back as though the memory hits him. Sam has no idea why. "Wow. You're right," Dean looks around again, with a different expression than before. Less relaxed, though it doesn't stop him eating. "I forgot her name," Dean shrugs. "She was nice. Cat dæmon."

Dean doesn't like real cats, because he's allergic. But their mom, Sam knows, had a cat dæmon, and in that way that people do, Dean tends to like such women (like Ellen and Jo both.) Sam doesn't really have any preference that way.

He looks at Bett, sitting all the way over there across the table with Dean, as they're out in public. If Sam has a preference, that's it right there, his brother and his wolverine dæmon, so fierce and so sweet.

When they find a place for the night, Dean hesitates before getting out. "Uh. The room. The beds. Should I…?"

Sam remembers last night, moving to the other bed, which had been cold. It hadn't been worth the gesture. The gesture had also not been worth making, as Dean hadn't done anything wrong. He sees that clearly now. "King if they got it," he says firmly, and is rewarded with a flash of relief in Dean's eyes as Bett scampers out.

"You got it," says Dean, and he's gone for a few minutes before coming back with a key and a smile that tells Sam they have a king. In the meantime, Sam has had a closer look at one of the items in his pocket, and done a little googling on his phone.

It's early in the evening. Sam isn't in a hurry. They hang out with the TV on, watching some dumb show from the 80s that Bett likes because she likes the main character's dæmon, then take turns in the bathroom for showers. Sam goes first so that Dean will go second. There's no point letting him put any clothes on.

When Dean comes out of the shower with the towel around his hips, Bett comes bounding out to jump up on the bed. Dean looks at Sam, then looks away, his cheeks gone pink. "So uh. I'm still not up for everything yet. Sorry." His body language, head and shoulders subtly slumped, suggests he knows he's being a bad soldier, and Sam really hates Dad sometimes, when he sees this.

"It's cool," Sam says, relaxed and smiling. "I know. We can do other stuff that we _both_ like. I won't be weird about it. I was sorry the second I got in that other bed last night, De. I just felt stupid, so I had to wait till you were sleeping to come back."

Dean is completely diverted from his own perceived failings by this, and he comes close to Sam to say, hoarsely, "You didn't have to wait."

"I know," Sam is saying even as he leans down to kiss Dean. "Come on." They lie down in the bed and kiss some more, till they're both worked up and panting.

"Where's the lube?" Dean wonders, and as he's getting it Sam says, "That reminds me," and gets out the little jar from the fairy beekeepers. Dean, seeing it, frowns.

"That's Bobby's, right? What…"

Sam lifts his eyebrows. "Well. I thought we might try a little. If you'll let me." Dean has drifted closer. "Let you…?" He isn't frowning now.

"Let me… put some on you. You know…" Ugh, he's being as bad as Dean. "On your _ass._ I'll only touch on the outside, I'll be really careful, and I'll stop the instant you say. It's, you know, it's got - healing properties. I researched it a little. I thought it might feel good and help out."

As he says this, it occurs to Sam that Dean could just as easily put the stuff on himself, in private.  It's medicine. But that doesn't seem to occur to Dean. He seems to like Sam's idea a lot. He's biting his lower lip as he nods enthusiastically.

"He's thinking about you as Dr. Sexy," says Bett. Dean turns red, but he doesn't try to deny it.

***

Bett is a pain in the ass, but she's done him a favor, especially since Sam didn't laugh at him. Sam doesn't try to roleplay being a doctor, either, which is also a good thing, because Dean really isn't up for that. Yet. It's just - this situation. So intimate. And he's already so turned on.

He drops his towel and gets on his hands and knees for Sam on the bed, trembling just a little, though it isn't cold in here at all. Sam's big warm hand smooths down his back, not quite doctorly, unless he's supposed to be a vet, heh. It does work, stops Dean trembling. For now.

Sam opens the jar and the smell of it is sharp and a little sweet, not quite like honey. "Okay," he says softly. "I'll be really, really gentle. Ready?"

"Uh huh."

Dean gasps at the touch. It's not cold, the stuff is as warm as Sam's fingers. The flesh Sam's touching is sensitive, vulnerable, unused to being touched at all, still faintly aching. But now…

"De, is it okay?"

"Yes," strangled, through his teeth. "Yeah it's - "

Tingling, and warm, but only that, gentle not sharp, less like medicine and more like magic, Sam's fingers wetly rubbing there like a loving tongue. Oh. God. Dean arches his back. "Jesus. Sammy. Don't stop." The ache is already going away. Now it's turning into something else.

Sam keeps on trying to ask him if it's okay, but it's more than okay, so much more that Dean can hardly tell him. "Yes," he keeps saying, "yes, Sam, yes," and man that stuff does work, because there is no pain anymore, and it's not from being numb either. Every nerve ending is alive, singing.

"I see it feels good," Sam says softly. "I'm glad. This enough?"

"No," Dean gasps. "More, put your finger in, please Sam."

But Sam's fingers go still, the opposite of what Dean wants. "Uh… Dean? Just a few minutes ago you weren't up for that. Remember? I don't want you to push yourself, okay? I don't like the thought of you being hurt for my pleasure."

Oh god, he's so good, so fucking sweet and good, and he's such a dope for all he's so smart.

"Sammm," Dean clutches at the already rumpled bedclothes, looking back over his shoulder, "for fuck's sake, it's not like that, it feels fantastic, you're - you're rubbing my ass with _magic healing bee jelly_ and I'm trying to tell you it _works_ , will you get some _inside_ me so it can finish the job? I'll, I'll do it if you don't want to, but - I like you doing it. Please?" Besides, Sam has it all over his fingers already, but Dean holds back from pointing that out.

After an agonizing pause Sam huffs out a little laugh. "You're incredible." He's got the same loving but exasperated tone in his voice that  Dean was just thinking about _him_ in. "All right. If anything hurts, at all, do not hide it, understand?"

Dean is saying, "I understand, I promise - " and then " _ahhh -"_  as Sam slips one finger in, so slow. But it does hurt a little, and Dean keeps his promise and doesn't try to hide it. "Hold still," he whispers, sharply, and Sam does hold still. There's just the sound of both of them breathing. Bett is sitting up alertly, but she's not showing any distress. Sam's finger inside him is warm and well coated in the jelly and a whole lot smaller than his cock. Still feels pretty big, though.

"This might be enough…?" Sam starts to say, but Dean says, "Wait," still whispering. There are... gold sparks? or something? gathering around the edges of his vision. It seems like he can hear his own heart beating, echoed from Bett; but he can hear Sam's too, which is Irri's inside him. The gold sparks are moving, surging back and forth in a tide. "Oh," he says.

"You okay?" Sam is asking, but Dean has already done all the coherent talking he can do. It definitely doesn't hurt anymore. He can make that clear. He pushes against Sam's hand, moaning. Sam finally takes the hint and pushes his finger all the way in.

Gold sparks swarm Dean's prostate, and Bett, rolling around, falls right off the bed.

The next couple of minutes are a blur for Dean. The world seems to have simmered down to Sam's voice, and his hands… and Dean's lying on his back now but he doesn't remember how that happened. Sam has said that he won't fuck him right now, Dean does remember that, but what he's doing with his fingers feels so good and Dean isn't coherent enough to complain that he'd like more. This is enough right now.

God. The way Sam looks at him. The sound of his voice, no longer alarmed but amazed now, at seeing Dean out of control like this. He urges Dean on, watching him writhe on Sam's slick fingers. _God, yeah. Fuck me._ Dean can't seem to talk, but he's not sure it matters. He's hard and leaking and he's got his legs spread wide for his brother and it feels so good, so infinitely fucking good he'll never get his mind around it, that they could have this, that Sam could want him, but it's true and he does and it's so fucking good Sam, all the way in and touching that spot - again - and _again_ -

The sea of sparks hits with a huge glittering wave at that high water mark, holds, holds right there, until he can't take one more breath of pleasure, can't take it. He hears Sam catch his own breath, seeing it about to happen, then Dean arches his back and comes, hoarsely screaming, his whole body shaking with the force and exertion of it. Pulsing, Shuddering. So good. Sweet Christ he never came like that in his life. There has to be brain damage if you come that hard. Oh well!

Dean opens his eyes part way, enough to see Sam, his face flushed and his eyes wild, his big hard cock in his hand. Sam is one, maybe two heartbeats from his own climax, and Dean watches in fascination as Sam's hand just barely strokes it twice and there he goes, goddamn that's hot, look how it jumps against his hand, blowing his load all over Dean's belly, already sticky from his own.

He doesn't pass out, but only because he doesn't want to. Dean can feel sleep trying to pull him down, but that just makes him want to fight it harder. He yawns and sits up. "That stuff works, but it probably ought to be a controlled substance," he says, and his voice sounds a little slow in his ears, but all the words come out right at least. Not too much brain damage. "Like, by prescription. Do not operate heavy machinery."

Sam laughs, a little rueful sounding. "Yeah. Kind of - seemed to really hit you all at once. I didn't know it would do that. It was hot - God, you were hot. But it scared me a little for a minute."

"Sorry about that," says Dean, but it comes out pretty relaxed for a change. Well, he hadn't known what to expect either. Sam was the one who did research. Well, that just now was research too, private research. Practical research. Experiments.

"You okay Bett? You kind of took a header off the bed there."

Bett obviously came back sometime since then, but has been hanging out up at the head of the bed away from the humans. She's lying on her side, looking at the muted TV screen. Her favorite old show is over, but she'll watch most of the stuff on that same channel if it's left on. She doesn't care at all that the sound isn't on.

"We lost our balance. It was like being drunk," she says to Sam. "Or more like drugged. Intense. He liked it, but you know that."

This is as close as Bett will get to talking directly about sex, Dean knows. It's not that she's a prude. She's a dæmon.

"But you're okay?" Sam just can't seem to stop asking people that. Bett rolls onto her back. "Fiiiine," she yawns. "Stop worrying."

Dean laughs a little. He feels pretty great, actually, tired out but in a comfortable way. He's warm, well fed, clean (now they've mopped up all that come) and he came hard enough to rearrange all his teeth, and on top of all these things, his ass feels… Well. Kind of sparkly. Which is not a thing he will ever say out loud to anyone ever.

He's kind of on the fence about whether they should deliver the jelly stuff to Bobby at all. Not like he wants to use it recreationally, but, well. It works. And Sam is huge.

However, Sam's already talking to Bobby on his phone, about the stuff on the list and whether Bobby knows anybody with a line on getting a branch from some extinct tree, and he adds, "Oh, and we got your bee stuff. The druids really laughed it up when we asked, what's it for?"

Oh Sam is so good at this, this innocent sounding interrogation. Dean wishes he could hear what Bobby is saying in reply. And how he's saying it.

"All right, okay," Sam says, "see you in a few days, thanks Bobby," and hangs up.

"What'd he say?" demands Dean, as Sam lies back down beside him. They're both buck naked, sprawled out, and it's awesome. Sam is beautiful and Dean is allowed to look at him all he wants to.

"He got all like, 'Uh well you know, useful in a lot of spells,' yadda yadda, but he didn't name any, then he said 'don't play with it, it can be dangerous.'"

"Dangerous, my ass," drawls Dean, and then he can't stop laughing for a good long while. Sam snorts at him, and calls him twelve, and tells him to grow up, then finally he concedes that maybe it _is_ a little TMI about Bobby and now they're both off, laughing themselves breathless.

They're not awake too much longer. Bett has lost interest in the TV now it's gone to paid programming, and Sam turns it off, turns the lights out, and shyly snuggles close to Dean in a way that half breaks Dean's heart. He's worried about being pushed away now?

He turns toward Sam and puts an arm around him, firmly. Closes his eyes. His Sam, once small enough to be completely cradled in Dean's arms, now so big he can half cradle Dean in return. When Irri settled into such a big form despite how small Sam still was, it showed what Dean already knew, how great a spirit Sam has. How can she be inside him, she's huge, doesn't it hurt, doesn't she suffer? Doesn't Sam? He can't ask Sam this, or Bett. Even Dean is not so clumsy as to ask questions that painful to Sam, and as for Bett, even if she knows, she wouldn't answer, and on top of that she really wouldn't like being asked.

He remembers what Cas told them about whole worlds of people with their dæmons trapped inside. He feels sorry for them.

Dean somehow knows it when he slips into sleep. He's still conscious - maybe he's dreaming, but he's wide-awake dreaming.

He's dreaming that he is Bett.

He stands up on four legs, totters a little, gets his bearings. He looks at the humans on the bed and knows one of them to be himself, only Dean's not home right now. He's got a pretty dopey smile on his face, too. Oh well.

Then he looks at Sam, and finally Dean understands why Bett goes to him so much, lets him touch her. Irri is there, inside Sam. Bett can see her. Of course she can. But she isn't a dog of course, not now, she's like she was when Dean first saw her all those years ago. She's a little light, a firefly, and she's inside Sam's body.

She's not trapped in one spot, it seems. She drifts between Sam's heart and his head: he's dreaming. Like Dean.

He creeps closer to the light, getting between the two humans, burrowing in so he can press close to Sam. Irri's light drifts down and stays, warm and familiar, but so far away.

In a little while, no longer dreaming, Sam rolls onto his back and his dæmon goes deeper inside, the light not fading but obscured by distance. Dean draws back, sighing in frustration, and looks at his own body again. Is Bett in there? If she is, she's sleeping. Dean is on his own.

He finds himself half wishing she'd settled as a raccoon. Having useful hands would really help pass the time till this wears off.

Dean starts to panic about an hour from dawn when he is still pacing around in his wolverine dæmon's body. He tries waking his other half, he tries snuggling up, he doesn't know how to make it happen in reverse because he doesn't know how it happened to start with. All he knows is he fell asleep -

Oh.

Dean curls up on top of himself and tries to fall asleep. This is ridiculously hard, and he starts to wonder what life is going to be like if he's stuck like this, but he must fall asleep at some point, because he wakes up with Bett on top of him, passed out like a panda after a bamboo bender, and a headache that feels suspiciously sparkly around the edges.

Later he tells Sam about it, ending with, "So okay, Bobby can keep his bee stuff. That just about scared me in half."

Sam is thoughtfully rubbing at his chest with the heel of his hand, obviously thinking over Dean's description of what he saw. Predictably, Bett won't corroborate anything. "I was asleep. You were dreaming. I don't know," she says.

Dean lets Sam drive today. He's tired out, though the rest of him still feels pretty great. Bett sprawls out between them so that she's touching them both at the same time. The weather is cold and rainy, and normally Dean would be bitching about it, but at least he doesn't have to do the driving.

They're in luck, in the dusty old storage place they check. They've got two and, if they can get somebody to identify this bone, maybe even three of the items on Rowena's list already, then. And there are at least three that Bobby should be able to lay his hands on without too much trouble.

One of them is really tricky, though. Dean doesn't see how the extinct tree branch is supposed to be in anybody's reach but Castiel's. And he hasn't been around lately. Is it us? Dean wonders suddenly. Does he know? Does it - matter to him? It isn't as though he goes around being Angel Police at people, sniffing out sins. It's just, this is a big one, isn't it?

It seems doubtful that they can hide it from him, if he doesn't already know, if he doesn't long since know all about Dean from the inside out.

Well - but - it doesn't matter right now. Whether he knows or not, whether he'd be - opposed or not, Cas brought Sam back like this and surely, surely he'll be willing to help put him and his dæmon right.

But Dean doesn't put this to the test right now and call him in. Not yet. He doesn't feel up to that particular trial just yet.

They've gotten what they were after today, and now they can kick back a little, have something nice to eat somehow or other, and finally, finally fuck. He's wanted it all day - has been craving it all day. Dean is at 100% now, all good to go, and maybe the royal jelly stuff is still working on him, or maybe Dean just turns out to be Like That, at least for Sam - craving his cock, thinking about it, longing for it. He's so fucking ready.

But Sam isn't, now. Sam isn't on the same page at all. When Dean tells him he's completely healed now, Sam doesn't take the hint. Dean can't tell if he's doing it on purpose or not - if he really didn't understand, or if he was playing innocent like he did on the phone with Bobby. It doesn't matter. Sam gets in the shower, and Dean looks at Bett, and Bett yawns.

They've got some whiskey that Dean picked up earlier today. He opens the bottle and has himself some. Sam is a long time in the shower. Bett wants him to put the TV on, but Dean doesn't feel like it and brushes her off.

When Sam finally comes out of there, with a billow of steam like a stage magician with smoke, Dean has a real buzz on, and Bett is sulking under the desk. Sam notices the bottle, but doesn't say anything about it - nagging hours are over for the day, since it's past dark, Dean supposes.

He gets up from where he's sitting on the (king) bed and takes a step toward Sam, and then Sam says, "So, uh. Can we - can we do it like - " He's so pink he's almost purple. "I want you to do it to me," he finishes in a rush. "Okay?"

Dean feels like he's been - not punched, but _shoved_. "What?" He wasn't expecting the request, wasn't thinking along these lines at all, and so he isn't prepared. To handle it well. "Uh. I uh. Hadn't really thought about it."

"So think about it now," says Sam, and he's kind of smiling, but there's an edge to it, a challenge. Dean is so grateful for the whiskey. It's keeping him warm while the rest of him tries hard to catch up. He doesn't know what Bett is doing. He doesn't look at her.

When the silence stretches on and Dean doesn't fill it with an answer, Sam's smile goes all the way to mad. "This is because of what I told you. Isn't it?" he says, and when, why did they start fighting, Dean doesn't know. But they're in it now, because it doesn't matter that Sam's on the wrong track, he's also barking up the wrong fucking tree here. This isn't something they can talk over, talk through, talk about at fucking all. He can only shake his head No. No, that's not it.

"Dean," Sam says, and Dean can't do this at all, he really can't. He's never been great with the well-timed comeback, but all he's got right now is "Shut up," before he escapes into the bathroom, supposedly for his own turn in the shower, but just to get a door between them. Eventually, he turns the water on.

***

Sam should know from long experience not to keep pushing, but he's angry. Dean has shut him out, but Bett is still out here with Sam.

"What is the _deal_ with him?" he asks, rounding on her. She has just come out from under the desk, and is climbing up on the bed. Her human half has been drinking, but he'd have to have been drinking a lot more to affect her coordination. Bett hunkers down and doesn't reply.

This is maddening to Sam. Why can't he get an answer? Is this what he gets for telling the truth to Dean?

"Will you just talk to me?" he says, sitting down on the bed near her, reaching out to touch her. Bett flinches a little. It's just like that flinching look in Dean's eyes just before when Sam asked - It makes him feel ashamed, exposed.

"I'm - dirty, right? Is that it?" he asks her.

She bristles and turns on him, baring her teeth, and for the first time, Sam is afraid of his brother's dæmon. He draws his hand back, slowly, as slowly as though she were a real wild animal. She looks like one right now. She - _feels_ like one. Until she talks, of course. Then she startles him in a different way.

"You're smart, why are you so stupid, Sam!"

She so rarely says his name, even now, even lately when she's been letting him touch her as though she were his.

"You're not dirty! You're hurt. WE'RE dirty."

Sam stares at her. She hunches down and does not meet his eyes.

"Bett. What do you mean…?"

She may or may not answer, of course. But she does answer.

"You and Irri went to the Pit because you are _good_ ," Bett says, low but clear. "You did it for others. To save others. The bad angel hurt you, but you were still good."

Okay. Though Sam feels the votes aren't really in yet about his own supposed goodness. "But - "

"We went to Hell for you, because we love you. To save you. But we knew we belonged there anyway. And we were hurt, there. And we started hurting others. My fault, Sam. Alastair would make me scream, and finally Dean broke and so I broke. And we had fun then, cruel, we hurt others and we both enjoyed it, we were there because we belonged there. If the angel hadn't pulled us out we would be a hellion by now. But it still happened. We're still _broken."_

Sam is crying at the thought of it. Dean sees what they did so _differently_. Sam did know about this - about most of it - but he hasn't really thought about it since Dean told him. Years ago. And of course, Dean would never have told him that detail about Bett. _Screaming_. He would rather have died than tell that about her.

"May I touch you, please, Bett?" he says, quietly, and she hesitates, but then moves close. He puts his hand on her back, and his fingers sink into her soft, thick fur. She closes her eyes. She's warm. It's such a relief to be allowed to touch her. "Thank you."

Not so long ago, Sam unburdened himself of all - or most - of the details of his time with Lucifer. But Dean has never had that for himself after his time in Hell, though to be fair, he probably hasn't wanted it. Sam thinks, not for the first time in his life, that of all the people on earth who need good therapy and just can't get it, it's hunters. What ordinary-world therapist could even believe what had caused the trauma in the first place? And there isn't any workaround. There are no problems of the human world that can ever fully compare. Sam knows that. There ought to be some kind of a VA For Hunters.

He wants to hug Bett close, but she skitters away when he tries it. Sam tries not to feel hurt. He's been asking too much of her. He knows it. She's been carrying too much. He isn't dæmonless.

"Go in there," she says, hunkering down, looking away from him. "He's getting cold."


	7. You still want

Sam goes into the bathroom, finds Dean's clothes scattered all over the floor, and Dean sitting hunched in the shower. When Sam turns the taps off, he finds that it wasn't cold to start with, Dean's just been in here so long the hot water's run out.

"Hey there," Sam says gently, not showing any alarm or asking any questions. He wraps a towel around Dean and coaxes him up onto his feet. Dean goes without a fuss, looking blank, the way people do when they stand around outside while their house is burning down.

Maybe that's not so great an analogy. Dean has actually been in that situation. Sam was there too, of course, but he can't remember it.

Sam pulls the bedcovers down and tucks Dean in to the bed, watching as Bett gets up and goes to him, snuggling against Dean's neck and shoulder. Dean's eyes are closed already, though Sam isn't sure he's sleeping.

Sam gets into the bed too, though he isn't tired at all. He lies there on his back, looking up, then turns on his side, toward Dean, and Dean's eyes are open, looking at him.

"Hey," Sam says, softly again. He reaches out, and for a moment he really thinks Dean will flinch away or turn his back on Sam, but he doesn't. He moves in closer, and relieved, Sam puts his arms around both Dean and Bett.

Dean mumbles against his chest, "Bett says she scared you."

Sam blinks, then remembers the moment. He caresses Bett's fur with one hand, and Dean's hair with the other. "I asked a rude question. She only bristled. I deserved worse."

Fleeting and rare, the touch of a wolverine nose against his fingers. It doesn't linger, but it makes Sam smile.

There is just nothing, nothing he can do about what's wrong. He knows that. He can tell Dean how good he is, how not broken he is, but these are just words, too small for the huge size of the pain, and Dean won't hear them. And it's the kind of belief some people refer to as 'dyed in the dæmon'.

And then there's Sam. Without his dæmon to talk to - he's living in his own head. Bett believes Sam went into the Pit because he's _good_. And that he's not dirty, but _hurt_. He hadn't thought about it that way before.

Without any warning, Dean moves a little and says, "When Bett settled, I was almost twelve. I remember Dad said that a lot, he was impatient for her to settle, and he kept saying 'Dean you're _almost twelve,_ what's taking so long.' I didn't know why either, though probably she was just trying to hold off on me having to grow all the way up, or else she knew she was never gonna be a wolf and could guess what a shitstorm that would be."

"We just had to both be ready," says Bett.

"I know, sweetheart."

Sam can vaguely remember some of this. That is, he remembers Bett still able to change, and then Dad's disappointment over the form she chose. But her form was and is so perfect, and so beautiful. Sam had been thrilled the first time he saw her, and Irri had tumbled down from his shoulder to the floor to examine Bett's new form and then to try it out for herself. Two wolverines playing together.

For about five minutes. Then Dad had taken Dean "hunting" with him (this was before Sam knew what hunting really was,) and Sam and Irri were left alone. For more than a week. Irri kept up the wolverine form the whole time they were gone. It had been unusually comforting. Though when they did come back, Dad had frowned to see it.

Dean, though, had smiled like the sunrise.

Dean says, "Dad took me hunting, right after. Like, that same day."

"I remember," says Sam.

"I was kind of excited. Sorry, 'cause I'm sure you were lonely with us gone so long." He doesn't say 'scared', as a kindness. "But I felt like it was special, I guess because Dad was so impatient about it, Bett had settled and we were all grown up." Dean laughs a little, Sam does too, just remembering the perspective of being a kid and thinking that was all there was to growing up.

"He'd taken me hunting before but this was the first time he had me actually on the front line. With him."

Sam thinks, privately, what a douchebag John could be. 'Front line'.

Dean says, "I was so proud, we were proud, weren't we Bett? Instead of leaving us in the car or with another hunter in charge of us. We could be useful. We were on a quest. We were going to avenge Mom. You know? Find the thing that killed her and punish the shit out of it.

"But that's not what we were doing. We were hunting this pair of vetala. That's actually the time we found out they hunt in pairs. I saw Dad write it down in his book later." His voice is proud, but then he shifts, and Bett does too. "I… He… You know how vetalas are always pretty, like pretty girls? These were too, really pretty, and before we got them they had some stuff to say about how cute Bett and I were and they'd like to keep me, and all that crap. - Dad kills one of them, right? With a silver knife. And then, he made me do the other one."

Sam's hands have stilled on Bett and Dean, his eyes wide. Dean takes a shaky breath.

"She was so pretty. I mean not with the eyes and teeth turned all weird and shit, but before she looked like that I'd thought - thought she was human until we found out she wasn't, and I'd liked her, and her dæmon liked Bett. And, and you know, a vetala, you've got to twist the knife. - I mean - "

And here, Dean will start to make excuses for Dad again, Sam knows it. He always does. - But he surprises Sam this time.

"I mean either he did it on purpose because I'd liked her? Or else he didn't even realize I did, or he didn't give a shit. But it was like, here, you wanted to be a grownup, start right the fuck now. But that wasn't the end of it that trip.

"He got all drunk that night and he let me have some too, and then he gave me a talk about you that - that just - "

He's trembling. Bett is holding extremely still. Sam doesn't dare move.

"He said now I was a grownup I had to understand what _you_ had to be protected from. And he told me some horrible-ass stories about - things sick fuckers do to kids - things he'd heard about - sounded like some things he'd seen. My stomach was already - I didn't know how to drink and he let me have a lot. He told me about some kind of pervert, there was some name for it he said, I can't remember. They, they do stuff to a kid whose dæmon hasn't settled yet. It makes the dæmon settle before their time. It's godawful, I'm sick right now thinking of it.

"And I was like, then how can we leave Sam alone? And you know how Dad _loved_ smart questions from my smart mouth. But I wasn't trying to piss him off. I was scared for you. He made it sound like the world was full of pedophiles.

"I said to Dad, I get it, let's go back then, I'll protect Sam, I won't let him out of my sight. Won't let anybody lay a hand on my brother. But he was getting really drunk by then and he wouldn't take that for an answer.

"You know how Trelle hardly ever talked? Like, ever? She was sitting there, watching us, and she finally said 'He means YOU.' And Dad passed out around then, but he had his hand on her back."

Which was a gesture of agreement. Sam used to do it himself, laying his hand on Irri's back in support.

"And I had to sit there and figure that out. He meant me! With all this talk about predators around you. He was telling me. Not to - fucking - _molest_ you. Now I was a grownup. You know - some kids that age - they do a bar mitzvah or whatever, you know? Not, not 'oh here, twist a knife in this girl you liked, have a drink and by the way, _don't_ be the lowest, most disgusting pervert on earth and force settle your brother'."

Sam's thoughts are whirling, a dust devil full of heavy objects with pointed edges. The first coherent thought that drifts up to him - and it must be, must be Irri inside him - is, What about Dean, before he settled, hadn't John worried about him? If he worried about such things so much, why did he leave them so often?

 _He's dead. It doesn't matter,_ he tells her inside his head. Dean is telling him the truth. He has to hear it.

"Well I had a week to chew on that before I could get back to you. I was about crazy with worry. Dad acted like the conversation never happened, of course he did, he always did that. I might even - have thought it was just crazy drunk talk, bad liquor or something. Only Trelle _talked_. And I drank too. So it wasn't that.

"Of course I was gonna protect you. From everybody. From anybody. Including me. I got the message, not to look at you like that. And I guess he got the timing right because seemed like puberty hit me like a train the following year and. And no matter what, I got the message. So uh. This horrible story? Is me trying to explain it, okay? Why I'm not jumping at the chance to do something I really kinda do wanna do."

"Oh," says Sam. "Oh god, Dean." He leans into the both of them, tries to gather them both up close in his arms. Dean seems to struggle for a moment, but it's only to get his arms free so that he can clamp tight to Sam with them. Bett, behind Dean's neck, is trembling too. "Dad just never really understood you at all, did he?"

It's a mild thing to say, much milder than many of the things Sam would like to say about John Winchester right now. But Dean reacts to it like it's a shock. "No," he says incredulously. "No, he really fucking _didn't_."

He hadn't understood Sam either, of course, but Sam escaped him, and Dean didn't even try.

 _And with everything he did for you,_ he thinks furiously at their departed father, _how hard you worked him, how hard you were on him, he would break his heart trying to live up to you and you made it impossible. You pushed at us both all the time, wanting our dæmons to settle faster to suit your plans, to settle the way you wanted them, how the hell is that different?_

Sam has always thought John's obvious desire for a wolf pack family was contemptible. It was vanity, nothing more than that, John had liked the idea of how it would _look_. Maybe, how he thought it would make him feel. But dæmons are not accessories. Sometimes a specific form will occur more often in families, yes, there is a genetic component to it, but John, Sam saw, fancied himself and Trelle as the two alphas of a wolf pack. Not only are dæmons not real animals, there is also no such thing as two alphas of one pack!

John, of course, had enjoyed Sam's contempt about as much as he enjoyed Dean's _smart answers._

_Did he hate it so much, that we always loved one another more than we loved him?_

"So," Sam says in the here and now, his lips against Dean's temple, Bett's fur under his hand. "If I hadn't kissed you, that would've been - just - between us forever?" He had known that night, somehow, that it was up to him. That it had always been up to him. But he hadn't been able to guess what Dean might do. He'd been too afraid.

Dean moves his head slightly against Sam's shoulder. He's nodding. "Probably. Yeah."

"Good thing I did, then," says Sam, choosing to leave his feelings about John aside for now. "Okay. I get it. I can see it - it wasn't like I thought." He wants to tell Dean, _Thank you for telling me what he said, I know it wasn't easy,_ but it doesn't matter how grateful Sam is for this sensitive information, Dean will not take well to being thanked for it. So he leaves it.

"But maybe someday…?" Sam says wistfully. "Since - since it's not that you don't want to?"

Dean takes a deep breath. Then he moves his head enough that his words aren't muffled in Sam's shoulder. "Yeah. It's not - it's not a - 'Never.' I just…"

"Yeah," Sam says, so that Dean doesn't have to try to finish the sentence. "Okay. It's okay."

The last word has barely crossed his lips before Dean is lifting his head, mouth seeking out Sam's mouth as though a kiss is just the next part of their conversation. And it is a little like a conversation. Dean's side is urging heat and quickness, _now please now,_ and Sam is countering with slowness, sweetness, longing, _wait, wait just a little._

Dean takes this surprisingly well. Sam wouldn't have expected it. But he doesn't dare draw attention to it either, or it might make Dean too self-aware. Sam presses him back into the mattress, Bett lolling practically on the pillow.

Dean puts his arms up over his head without any prompting from Sam. Bett goes to lie up there, between Dean's hands. Dean looks up at Sam with his green eyes half-lidded, showing luminously through his lashes, and he and Bett together are simply the most beautiful thing Sam has ever seen.

He goes slowly, no matter how much Dean squirms. Dean never actually complains. At all. Sam spends so much time on his nipples that he's sure any moment Dean will groan, 'come on already!' - but he doesn't. He gasps, bites his lip, his hips rise and fall, but he doesn't complain about how slow Sam is going.

Sam is enjoying this, worshipping Dean's skin with his lips and tongue and occasionally, teeth, but he turns out to be the impatient one in the end. Dean smiles at him when he gets the lube, but it's a complicit smile.

Still, he goes tortuously slowly with his fingers at first, just for the principle of the thing. Dean is so wound up he might just be vibrating slightly. But he still won't make demands. Neither of them has said a word since Sam said 'okay'. Their voices are audible, but in their breathing, in Dean's moans.

Then when Sam slides into him, Sam is moaning too. He's on his back now, Dean is on top of him, astride him, looking down. Bett is still up at the headboard.

Sam lifts his arms up over his head, the way Dean did before, so that his fingertips have contact with Bett's fur. No one is holding his wrists. They're just there.

Bett feels wonderful. Dean feels wonderful.

And Dean is in control, now.

***

Dean looks down at Sam, sprawled out underneath him, diagonal across a king size bed, and grins.

"You look good like that," he says, breaking the silence without ever realizing there had been one, and starts to move on Sam. Really slowly. It feels so fucking good that it's tempting to rush to the end now but Dean is damned if he'll do that, after all that teasing Sam just put him through. Like gobbling down something delicious so fast that you can't even taste it. No, if Sam wants a slow burn, that's what he'll get now.

Sam's hands on Bett are helping distract him a little. Since that dream when he was Bett, he's felt a little more aware of her than before. Sam is already touching him, heh, you could call it that. But when he touches Bett now it does more to Dean's nerve endings.

Maybe it's just that it's Sam.

Dean moves on him slowly, slowly - taking pleasure in every little expression on Sam's face. The cock inside him feels huge, in a really good way, in a way he fucking _needs_ \- Dean has been craving it for many hungry hours today. He's already found the best angle to his own prostate, a certain kind of shallow stroke - but he hardly dares go there right now, because by this point almost anything could make him come.

He wants to come, of course. Just not - so fast. He wants to see Sam lose it, longs to see Sam feeling that thing he described, how he's able to touch Irri at the peak. And Dean won't be able to see that if he's all mind blown and stupid from going off too soon.

Sam, with his arms stretched up like that, looks hot, really hot, and it's on display how he's all grown up, big and perfect and strong (and in the midst of these thoughts Dean rides a little harder on Sam, moaning low in his throat, picking up the pace a little without having really decided to.) There's been a long, long road between this man and the boy he was. Dean will do it the way Sam wants, he thinks he could now that he's told, and Sam seems to understand.

But not today, dammit. Today, right now, Dean - wants - this - flexing his thighs in a hard rhythm now, gasping, and when Sam starts to reach out to him, probably to slow him down, Dean just says through his teeth, "Keep - hands - on Bett - " and once Sam obeys, Dean lets himself do it, that angled stroke that he now knows will set himself off. He ought to have known, Sam will want it, want to see him come. Maybe they'll go together, or close.

Sam's eyes, dark from dilated pupils, are shining at him. "De," he whispers, and _god_ but sometimes he sounds the same as ever since he learned to _talk,_ "please," and that is just too much. Dean cries out, his voice gone hoarse, "Sam," and then comes in what feels like an explosion of sparks. His eyes want to close, his head wants to tip back, it's a reflex, but he fights them to gaze down, to see Sam's face.

Sam's face is, for just a moment, illuminated - literally illuminated to Dean's eyes - by the bright light of Irri inside him, Dean can see her, she's there with Sam as Sam's mouth opens and his back arches - and more sparks, Sam's coming, Dean hasn't even finished yet - though it's ebbing now, it can't sustain forever, it's too good, too good. Up above Sam's head, between his hands, Bett pulses with the same light in Dean's eyes. Then Irri's light slips back down inside Sam as though he's breathed her back in, and Dean collapses down on top of him.

Later, he's hesitating about telling Sam about this experience. It was one thing to have a dream, but a waking vision during sex is strictly Weirdsville. Or drug trip. Dean thinks nervously about the fairy bee royal jelly. Jeez, he only used it once. Bobby said it could be dangerous… but Dean hadn't been the one talking to him and hadn't heard how serious Bobby had made it sound. It had been like sparks at the end, sure, but - wasn't it always, kind of? It hadn't been golden sparks, had it? He can't remember that now.

"Are you thinking about Dad?" Sam breaks in on his thoughts, and Dean is too startled to stop Bett saying, "No, he's worried because he thinks he saw Irri while he was awake." Her tone is bored, as though he's being really tedious to worry about a thing like that.

Of course this makes Sam say "What?" - and excitedly, then worriedly, then sternly demand details. For a guy who hates Dad so much, Dean thinks weakly during this interrogation, Sam sure could act exactly the fuck like him at inconvenient times.

And Bett is no help of course. Though he knows better this time than to try to fight with her.

"Why would you keep this from me?" Sam is demanding.

"I didn't want to make a big deal out of it, Sam, and make you feel bad for using it on me, I don't think it's a big deal, and what I saw? still coulda been some, I don't know, hallucination, flashback to a hallucination. I don't think it means anything. Anyway, don't worry, I won't use any more of that stuff." He's a little sore again, but much, much less than the last time. All that super slow prep might have had some point to it after all. "Not that it wasn't fun, and it did the job and all, but maybe a little more crazy than it's worth."

"'Did the job'?" says Sam, grinning at him, diverted now. "Is that the same as 'doing the thing'?"

Dean refuses to get worked up in the way Sam expects, firing back, "No, _we_ did the thing, and then the bee stuff did the job." Sam's grin gets wider. Then he visibly remembers what they were just talking about.

"Okay, but please. If anything odd like that happens again, tell me?"

"Well obviously you can count on _Bett_ to tell you whatever," says Dean, but without any heat to it. She makes the noise at him that's supposed to be rude but just turns out to sound kind of cute.

And things are really good, he and Sam feel balanced again, in harmony again you might say (though not necessarily out loud or anything.) They get a little too relaxed with how well it's going, collecting the stuff they need for the spell, hitting the last of Dad's storage places (that they know about, anyway) just west of Chicago. The woman running the place seems just a little bit too interested already - Dean doubts she's a hunter but she doesn't seem completely civilian either, or else it's just that she looks nosy, with that rat dæmon, and had maybe managed to nose into Dad's space enough to get a glimpse of weirdness. She certainly notices when they come back out, flush with another success, and Sam, not realizing anybody is watching him, is walking along comfortably with no dæmon at all. Or pretense of dæmon.

Her own dæmon ought to have enough sense to tell her that Sam isn't a monster - but then again, Lisa's Galian didn't, and he was always a sensible little guy. Whatever, at least the woman doesn't go calling the police, but she screams "He has no _dæmon!"_ in a crazy loud voice and startles Bett and Sam and by the time Dean wheels on her, ready to shout in Sam's defense, she already has her gun leveled on Sam.

"No!" says Dean, hands out in an instinctive, placating gesture. "We're leaving, we're leaving now, don't do it, ma'am. Don't. Please." Another instinct tells him not to try to protest, not to try to explain, just to get the fuck out, because she won't hear it, and he might end up talking too long. Bett is crouched down, submissively, looking as non threatening as she knows how, showing no threat, no threat, no threat.

Dean can see by now how scared the woman is, her hand is shaking. The gun is a heavy one. Shiny. Nice finish. Bad time to be noticing that.

She gestures with her head for them to get out, and they get out. Every moment, Dean expects to hear that gun fire, he's braced for it, but it doesn't happen. All he can hear is is own rapid heartbeat. Sam has his hand pressed over his chest as though to protect Irri in there.

"Shit," Dean finds himself saying as they hurtle into the car and get the fuck out of there, in case she changes her mind about letting them leave in peace and decides to come out with that shiny gun blazing. "Shit, shit, shit," as he drives, and it takes Dean a little while to be able to stop saying it. "Shit. Shit!" Finally Bett pokes his hand to make him stop. Glancing aside, Dean sees that Sam is staring straight ahead as though in shock. His hands are pressed against his chest. The thing they went into that place to get, which is a heart of some kind, is on the floor between Sam's feet. It's petrified. It should be fine.

Dean is having trouble focusing. It's the adrenaline.

"That was my fault," Sam says.

Dean groans inwardly. Bett does it out loud for him.

"No, it is. I'm already getting - used to this. Like I've always been this way. I forgot to pretend -  De, I'm starting to forget what she looks like."

The thought makes Dean's blood run cold. He glances at Bett. He can see she doesn't like this at all. She doesn't say anything, but she's gone still in a certain way that Dean knows.

"No. Sam. Listen. You forgot to act the part because you're, you're adapting. You're doing what you have to do, so you can get her back. That's all it is. It's just another couple of weeks - "

"It's only _been_ a couple of weeks," says Sam, sadly. "At most. It's a long way to go without her."

Dean wants to say _I know,_ but he doesn't think he _does_ know what it can really be like for Sam. For all he and Bett went through in Hell - for all they both did - they were still together even when they were being pulled apart. They had both been themselves. No one had - stuffed Bett down Dean's throat and expected him to breathe. Not after they got down off the rack, anyway -

"Dean?"

He's gripping the wheel really hard, and breathing fast. _Dammit, Bett. Hadn't thought about Hell in a long time._ But she went dredging it up and it'll take a while for it to settle back down.

"Yeah. I'm, I'm good."

He's not even trying to fool Sam into thinking that's true. Sam reaches over Bett to touch Dean's leg.

"Let's get a little further down the road," Sam says softly, "get something to eat and stop for the night. Okay? We would've done that anyway. We got what we went there for," nudging the petrified heart with his boot.

Dean makes a strangled sound, but his grip on the wheel eases a little. "I'm supposed to be taking care of _you_ ." He wouldn't even say this out loud, if he weren't so frazzled by what almost happened back there. So easy. Bang. They hadn't been expecting anything, let alone sleek shiny death. The rat lady had been _knitting_ when they came in.

"We take turns," Sam says, simply. His big, warm hand squeezes a little before retreating from Dean's thigh. "Let's just get takeout. Though I'm pretty sure I can promise you, I will _not_ forget again."

Dean nods, and he spends the next hundred miles or so getting himself together. Sam is right, they do take turns, he knows that, and he's grateful for it. But it is definitely still Dean's turn, after what happened. Sam will need him, he knows it.

They don't really need to get this far away from that woman, he knows that, but they're headed back to South Dakota now anyway. So both of their stomachs are growling by the time they stop. There's a Chinese place, practically the only place in town, and it looks crummy but the food turns out to be amazing. Sam likes Chinese, and Dean doesn't mind it when it's this good.

The motel is one of the looks crummy and is crummy variety. No king beds either, but Sam just shrugs when Dean comes back with the key and the news. "No, I figured. Look at this place. I think it was janky during the Eisenhower administration."

He's being nice about it on purpose, Dean knows. Having a good attitude and trying to make it catch on. He can picture Irri now, beside Sam, giving that half-hearted wag of her tail.

No kidding about the jankiness, when they get in and see it. The room doesn't look to have had much housekeeping since the Eisenhower administration either, but the sheets are clean. At least there's that.

And there's this really surprisingly great Chinese food for them to feast on. They put the TV on - mostly for Bett, keeping her entertained while they eat.

Bett didn't always pay this much attention to TV, but Dean supposes it might be a side effect of not having Irri to talk to and be with. Anyway, she's always loved this time travel show, probably because the main character takes on other people's bodies, and his dæmon changes shape too. It's just special effects of course. They use the voice of the real actor's dæmon, and use various tricks to make her seem to change shape. It's pre-CGI stuff, and sometimes the effects look clumsy. But Bett thinks it's the coolest, and could watch it for hours. Dean thinks it's okay, but the time traveler guy is no Doctor Sexy. (On the other hand, Bett has stated on more than one occasion that Doctor Sexy's awesome snow leopard dæmon looks "slack-jaw stupid with spots." And she's just plain wrong and possibly jealous.)

The shower is just creepy. Neither of them spend any longer in that bathroom than they have to. But yeah, thank god for the clean sheets though. Because tomorrow night they'll be back in Bobby's house… Where it started. But they've kind of gotten a lot _noisier_ since then. Stealth mode is going to be hard - well, it's going to suck - it'll be a pain in the ass - Ugh, Dean stops even trying to think. They've had a few beers along with the Chinese food, and Bett needs to move over and have her own bed if she's gonna loll around in the middle of it like that, they need some space here.

"You still want?" he asks Sam, and Sam nods immediately, catching on to his meaning just by his not quite saying it.

Not that Dean couldn't do it again himself tonight, he totally could, he can hardly feel it already from last time, but that isn't the point. "Okay."

Well, there's nothing to feel weird about, right? Dean remembers the lesson of how slow he should go. If Sam doesn't like it, or if it makes Sam freeze up - that hasn't happened in a little while, but it seems more likely now to Dean - then they can stop, or do something else. And Sam himself pretty much says the same thing as they get ready to get ready, getting a towel (which is thankfully not stored in that bathroom) and the lube and all, and muting the TV (so Bett can keep watching, if she wants to.)

"Dean, you're killing time now," Sam complains, and he's right. He's stalling a little bit. Sam pulls him in close and kisses him for a while, which makes time go all wonky for Dean.

"I want you. To fuck me. Understand?" says Sam, his fingertips and short nails scratching at Dean's hair on the back of his head in a way that makes shivers slam down his spine (and which Sam must have noticed during a previous make-out session.) Dean shivers, of course, and gulps, and says "Yeah. Okay."

Well, it's a little easier somehow when Sam puts it like that. Nobody can feel like he's taking advantage if he's actually following direct orders. He gets some lube and takes a good long while opening Sam with his fingers, keeping to that punishing slow pace that Sam used on him last time, even though Sam is obviously enjoying the whole thing. Sam doesn't try to hurry him, either, though when Dean finds his prostate and strokes it, Sam begs him to stop after a few seconds, or else he'll come. Not that that wouldn't be a lot of fun to do this way, and to watch, but next time. He wants to save it. Dean understands. That's exactly how he felt about it.

Bett has given up watching her show now, even though it's still on - Dean can see the time-traveling flash of light out of the corner of his eye - and is on the bed with them. Sam is on his back and she's snugged up at that place between Sam's neck and shoulder that Dean has recently discovered how much he likes to kiss. Sam had the idea to snag a pillow from the other bed to put under his hips, and it's a good idea. Dean approves of it.

"Okay. Dean. Now. I need it right the hell now." He says it so urgently, as though they're hunting, and in danger, that Dean doesn't have time to think. Sam is smart, dammit. Also big, strong, beautiful - grown up - and his.

We take turns, Sam said, well yes we do.

Dean watches Sam's face carefully, even as he's obeying that sexy voice and pushing in. Sam reacts all right, but that doesn't look like pain. Bett is right there with him, watching him too. It's pleasure on Sam's face, clear enough for anyone to see.

"Come here, get down here," Sam says hoarsely. "Kiss me."

The only way Dean can do that now is to sink all the way in, and god it's good, so good, hot and sweet and silky-tight, and Sam moans into his mouth, his fingertips doing that thing to the back of Dean's head again, sending shivers down his spine that push his hips into motion. Sam's cock is hard and hot against his belly as they're pressed together. Sam's long legs are around his waist.

He can feel the light inside Sam. Pressed against his chest. He can taste it in Sam's mouth as they kiss. Bett is making that purring noise, loud enough to hear over their breathing and moans and motion. But maybe that's just because she's so near.

When Irri is back, Dean wonders, will Sam let Dean touch her?

Bett says - but silently, only to Dean for once - _You're touching her now._

Yes. That's. That's true. Not what he meant, but she's right again.

There's a slamming nearby, startlingly loud, and though they hear it again multiple times through the night - it's the door to the stairway, and that's how it sounds - it's the first time Dean has heard it and it startles him into freezing, staring wide eyed toward the door. Bett, too, has gone silent.

It takes only a second for Dean to realize it's fine, and nothing to do with them, but it's more than long enough for Sam to notice. He growls, shaking Dean by the shoulders and turning him away from the door and back toward him, "Dean! He's _dead_."

That shocks him, the bluntness of it, because of course, that's what just happened, for a split second Dean had thought - banging on the door - then kicking it down - Dad catching them at it, catching DEAN at it - Dean has to struggle with this, for a second, biting his lip, keeping himself from saying something stupid, doing something to make it worse for everybody.

"You're mine now," Sam pants, wild-eyed, still gripping Dean's shoulders. "Right now. Fuck me."

Dean catches his breath, didn't realize he'd been holding it. He blinks down at Sam, then he just nods a little, acknowledging what Sam said but that's the best he can do, and the thing to actually do now has been made more than clear enough. Dean pushes up to support more of his weight on his arms and does as Sam commands him. Including when Sam says 'harder' and 'DE I mean it, HARDER'. Sam also uses his arms and legs to convey these messages pretty damn effectively.

But then Dean finds it, the sweet spot of how hard and fast Sam wants it and the remembered angle of where to reach Sam's prostate, and is rewarded with Sam speechless, gasping, his eyes shut and his mouth an O of helpless pleasure. Yeah. There. God, Dean's going to come just - not - Yet -

He reaches down between them and wraps Sam's cock in his hand, it's slick with precome, hot and throbbing. Sam's eyes open, staring up at him.

"Come for me, Sammy," Dean whispers hoarsely, stroking him, fucking him, "please, please." God, he's so fucking beautiful. And he responds as though he was only waiting for Dean to ask him to come, because he gasps a little, and then his back is arching, he's shuddering and - oh god, inside him - the rhythm inside him of his coming, it's all around Dean, throbbing all around him, coaxing and milking at him, Jesus, Dean's eyes are wide, "oh god," he's coming, Sam's coming is making him come, "Sam, oh Jesus - Sam - " He can't move now, all his muscles are locked tight, fully extended, he's trembling, eyes shut now, he's got tears dripping out from under his lashes. Sam's arms and legs are around him, Dean is crying out against Sam's throat, and no more words are possible.

They collapse together, finally, halfheartedly toweling off before lying there together, intertwined, stunned by intensity. Dean half fears that Sam will give him shit for freezing up like that, thinking someone was at the door, thinking Dad was. But they don't talk at all. They're too lazy even to get the remote and turn the TV off, so Dean drifts off seeing the light from some commercial reflected in Bett's eyes.


	8. She's my sister

Sam dozes for a while, warm and content, but eventually wakes up to a few kinds of discomfort. One he can relieve immediately, as soon as he disentangles himself from Dean, who is actually snoring a little (beer does tend to make him snore.) Bett is asleep too, so Sam turns off the TV on his way past it and goes to the bathroom.

When he comes back out, he's frowning a little. Dean was really careful - slow and gentle, until Sam had demanded otherwise. Even so, he's really pretty sore, enough to wince when he sits down normally. Sam really doesn't want Dean to be blaming himself for this. He may be sore now, but it was worth it. Not once that whole time had Sam gone cold, flashed back, anything. It had been just what he wanted. Only it was so good, he'd gotten a little too enthusiastic. Hadn't hurt at the time. But it's a deep hot ache right now, and he's thinking more and more of getting that royal jelly out of his bag.

Well, why not? It hasn't done Dean any harm. At most it's had what sounds to Sam like slightly trippy aftereffects, none of them especially negative or frightening sounding. He's not going to use much - he didn't use very much on Dean, either. But he can just take care of this and not have Dean feeling guilty at all. Sam had a hard enough time getting Dean to do it in the first place. But they'd both loved it once he did.

Hell yeah, he wants to do that again. So he moves quietly (though there's hardly any need, Dean can sleep amazingly soundly after sex, Sam has learned), unzips his bag and rummages briefly, then takes the jar into the bathroom… And right back out again. God, that bathroom! He'll only go in there when he has to. Actual, active use of fixtures only.

So he gets on the other bed to apply it. And he doesn't make any kind of a big production out of it the way he did for Dean, either - he can feel for himself what hurts, and moves carefully, but once he's got some inside, there's nothing else to do but go wash his hands in the horrible bathroom.

By the time he's done that and come back out, it's already starting to work, he can feel it. It's tingling a little, a little warm - nothing as dramatic, it seems, as it was for Dean. Maybe it's a side effect of having a hidden dæmon? If the spell works -

When the spell works, he reminds himself. When it does he can try it again. But as long as it's doing the healing, which is the real point, Sam is still a happy customer of those bee druids. Maybe they can just get Bobby some more of the stuff…

While thinking these things, Sam has drifted closer to Dean where he lies sleeping. He's naked of course, and he's kicked the covers off, conveniently on display for Sam's view. Bett is within arm's reach of Dean, curled up. They're both boneless with contentment. Sam rubs at the center of his chest with the heel of his hand.

 _I miss you,_ he tells Irri. _Bett misses you. Dean misses you._

No reply. Nothing. There could be - Nothing inside Sam. For real, like the gun-toting lady in the storage place thought. He only knows she's there because Bett and Dean say so. But they would, wouldn't they? Wouldn't they insist on it, even if he really is dæmonless?

"Bett," he whispers.

She may or may not really have been sleeping, but she rouses quickly enough. Her ears flex a little, her face scrunches, then she opens her dark eyes.

She can read the look on Sam's face. She gets up and comes to him, lifting her front legs so that he knows he's allowed to pick her up. She's warm and sleepy and her fur is the softest thing in the world.

He sits down on the other bed, rests his face against her side with his eyes shut.

"You smell like the fairy bees," she says softly.

"Yeah. Don't tell Dean," ruefully, "I'm all right, I just - thought I'd try it."

"He'll figure it out," is all she says about that. She says it offhandedly, not as a warning. It's a little ambiguous, therefore, what Bett means by the 'it' Dean will figure out.

"Can I ask you something?"

Bett wriggles in reply, a lazy affirmative. She wouldn't have snuggled up if she weren't willing to talk, Sam knows. So he asks, "How are you so sure about Irri, Bett? What if Cas was - lying?" It's not as though Cas hasn't lied to them before.

Bett twists around, staring up into his face. "Why are you doubting this now, Sam? We're not lying to you. She's there inside you. I'm talking to her _and_ you right now."

"You don't have to be lying to be _wrong_ , Bett," he whispers fiercely. "I know how easy it is to convince yourself of what you want to believe. But I can't _feel_ her, I should be able to feel _something_ , what if she's dying, smothering in here with me - "

"Sam," she whispers, "Breathe. Breathe. You're the one who needs to. She doesn't. I don't. I promise."

She has reached up to pat at his cheek with her little paw, the claws carefully held back to protect him.

Sam feels tears in his eyes, tries to blink them away.

"Since you were born, I've known where Irri is," Bett says. "She's my _sister_. Believe me, I know where she is right now. And Sam. Dean and I have seen a dæmonless. Up close. While you were at school. They were nothing like a real person. And you're - the realest person in the world. You are still you, because she is here with you."

Sam is silent, thinking about this. Bett adds, "And since you like science and all, there's this: we've seen you dreaming. Your eyes doing the fast-motion dreaming thing. Dæmonless can't."

Their talking has woken Dean up. He stirs, looks around and smiles sleepily at them.

"Come back to bed."

Sam does, carrying Bett. He's sleepy now, still tingling a little in certain places, but much improved already. Even if it doesn't work any better for him than this, Sam is satisfied he at least won't be noticeably wincing at breakfast.

There isn't any breakfast. There's another close call at the diner they try to go to, someone who's seen them before and knows pretty well that the big guy had a big dog and what's going on here. Sam is stony-faced as they drive away, and though Dean stops a few exits down the road for McDonald's, Sam isn't hungry anymore.

Bett is bothered too, Sam can tell by the way she's pressed close to Dean's leg. That means, of course, that Dean is bothered, and Sam doesn't say anything, because there's nothing to say. He can't live like this around other people. That's increasingly obvious.

By the time they get back to Bobby's Sam feels hollow with hunger. Bobby isn't even there, it turns out (he's in Arizona, they learn when they call him.) Dean cooks some breakfast, since there isn't much else in Bobby's fridge.

Dean sets down a plate, and Sam stares sullenly at it. Eggs, toast, and sausage instead of the usual bacon.

"There ain't much else here," Dean says, apologetic and not at all annoyed, as Sam half expects. "I could go into town - "

"No," says Sam immediately, "Don't. There's nothing wrong with the food. I'm just…" He shrugs. Just what? What can he say that isn't the same ongoing thing, the same thing it's been most of his life actually, that there is something wrong with Sam. "I'm sorry."

Dean gives him a long, hard look, glances at Bett and then sits down with his own plate. He starts eating, which makes it easier for Sam to stop staring and start eating too.

He does feel a little better when the plate is empty. He takes it and Dean's to the sink to wash, remarking, "I'm glad Bobby's not back yet." He's thinking of the bedroom upstairs, their first night, when he had felt too miserable after waking from another dream of the Pit not to beg Dean not to pull away from a kiss. If Sam had never done that…

"Me too," says Dean, as he expects, but then, "We should call Cas before he gets back."

"Huh?" Sam pauses in confusion, on the wrong track somehow. He had thought they were talking about being alone in the house, about having sex. "Cas? Why?"

Dean can't seem to look at him. This puts Sam on alert. "Well we need him for the last one of those ingredients. That extinct branch thing. But I'd rather Bobby wasn't here if…" He shrugs.

"If what?" Sam feels completely lost, what did he miss? He glances around for Bett, for any clue as to what Dean is so uncomfortable about. She's down by Dean's feet, and she's not looking at Sam either.

"If he's got a problem with _us_ ," Dean says. "You and me. Like… because... it's a sin?"

Sam stares incredulously at Dean. There's so much to say to that, he can't get any of it out of his mouth. _Sin? Are you talking about sin now? You think I care about sin anymore, I've been to Hell, and so have you, what's sin to us now who have already had all the punishment first? And does it feel like sin to you, Dean, more than love, is that why you're afraid Dad's ghast will break down the door?_

Dean, glancing toward him, scowls and turns red. "Well isn't it?" he demands. "To an angel? They're all rules lawyers, aren't they, isn't that kind of their _job?"_

"Cas hasn't been," Sam points out. "He's bent or ignored all kinds of rules." But even as he says this, he's frowning thoughtfully. "But - I guess you're right. He might have a problem with it. But what can we do if he does?"

"Nothing," says Dean immediately. "Just if he does, I'd rather it wasn't - in front of Bobby."

Sam can only nod, slowly, in understanding. This is not at all the same thing as with Dad, a poison memory with undue influence over the present. Bobby would be heartbroken, blame himself, be suspicious of whether Sam's dæmon was really inside him and not tainted by Lucifer - wasn't this a sign of it - and on and on. The possibility of him accepting it is so slim, Sam wouldn't chance it. Not when he's pushed his luck all the way to the limit already, kissing Dean. (Here in his house. Another thing Bobby would blame himself for if he knew and therefore mustn't know.)

"Yeah," he says, agreeing with a sigh. "We've got to protect Bobby."

Dean sags with relief. "Exactly! Exactly. You know I'm not - I'm not trying to say - " He's flailing, and Sam lets him off the hook this time.

"I know," he says gently. "I know you're not. Well, okay. When do we call him? You want to get it over with now? How long have we got till Bobby comes back?"

"He said tomorrow, but he didn't say when."

Dean looks so reluctant that Sam wants to let him off the hook even more and say they should wait, but he also knows well enough that it will weigh on Dean until then. He just looks at Dean and lets Dean realize it too. It doesn't take very long.

"All right. Let's just - let's just be clear here, we're just asking him about the branch thing, we're not _telling_ him or anything - "

"God, no!" says Sam.

Bett stretches up along Dean's leg, and he leans down absently to pick her up. "It's just, he might just know anyway. He does just _know_ shit about people sometimes."

"I know," says Sam.

There's a silence, filled by the ticking clock and the old fridge's motor kicking on.

Dean takes a deep breath, then says, "Castiel. Got your ears on. Need to talk to you."

They wait. They look around Bobby's kitchen.

No Castiel appears.

"Cas?" says Dean, a little louder, as though that will make a prayer go further. "Castiel? Could use your help…"

He looks at Sam, and now there's a different kind of worry in Dean's face. They hadn't imagined the possibility that Cas might stay away because of their supposed sins.

"He doesn't always answer right away," Sam reminds him. "There could be who knows what going on in Heaven, he might not be allowed to just fly out of a meeting with superiors or something."

"That means he could show up any old time," Dean groans. "Like while we're sleeping. He loves that shit."

Sam sighs, and it turns into a yawn, and a big, luxurious stretch of his arms and neck and back. He can feel Dean's eyes on him and he enjoys it to the fullest, smiling at him.

"Well, I'm gonna get a shower."

Dean looks crestfallen, almost a Christenmas-is-canceled face. "Aww…"

"Just come with me," Sam shrugs. "Either he'll show up or he won't, and either he'll know or he won't. But since at least _Bobby's_ definitely not gonna walk in on us, let's go grab the master bathroom while we've got a chance."

Bobby renovated his bathroom with a pretty huge shower. And, they are generally forbidden to use it. The other bathroom isn't bad, just old and of typical dimensions for an older house. The prospect is enough to make Dean perk up in interest despite his Cas-related anxiety.

He does stall a little, of course. Sam knows he can depend on that. It's obvious why, Dean is on the alert for any sound, that slight sound of wings, or Cas' feet on the floor. Bobby's house is creaky and inclined to give various false alarms. Finally Sam just strips and turns the water on, looking with satisfaction at the shower head placed high enough for even his head. Bobby is a miser, hoarding this nice shower to himself.

If they do have to end up living on their own, that place out in the woods he's been picturing, it will need to have something like this in it. For him and Dean. And here Dean comes at last, as Sam turns around and around luxuriously under the hot spray. He has shed his clothes in a neater pile than Sam has, as though to be ready to put everything back on in a hurry, maybe. There's no point in giving Dean a hard time about it. At least he's here.

Naked. Blushing, almost all over. Beautiful.

"I never asked you. How you're doing, since." Dean's gaze cuts down and away before Sam realizes what he means. "Are you hurting at all…?"

"Oh! No," Sam hesitates, then admits, "I was. But I, you know, some of that royal jelly, and now it's pretty much fine."

"You did?" Dean's eyes go vague for a moment, then he frowns. "Oh. Bett knew. Figures. Anything else, any weird - "

"No, seriously, nothing. No weird effects I can tell at all. Maybe…" And he doesn't need to finish the sentence, obviously, maybe it's because his dæmon is stuck inside him.

His face must look troubled. Dean reacts to it, taking charge of the shower, his hands gentle on Sam's skin. He offers to wash Sam's hair, but Sam prefers to do it himself. And while he does it, he can watch Dean washing himself… letting his gaze linger openly on Dean's naked body is a gift in and of itself, and whenever Dean looks at him in the same way Sam can feel it against his skin.

Sam feels sure that since they are half expecting Castiel, Dean won't want to do any more than wash and get dressed again as soon as possible, but he's wrong. Dean seems to feel the same way he does about being looked at. He hesitates while washing, glances toward Sam, blushes and slowly resumes what he was doing… only to repeat the process. Just in looking at him, Sam realizes, he is making Dean feel how gorgeous he is, how desirable. There's an incredulity to his delight in this that's a little heartbreaking to Sam, but it is still delight.

And it might be fragile, so Sam doesn't do anything to shatter it. He lets Dean finish what he's doing and then moves aside so that Dean can have the full benefit of the shower spray, and he enjoys this spectacle too, Dean with his eyes squinched tightly shut as water pounds down over him, sluicing suds down to his feet and away down the drain.

Then when he's done, Sam rinses his hair, and the moment this is finished Dean is stepping up into Sam's space and kissing him, urgently, his cock hard and throbbing against Sam's thigh.

Bett has been in the other room for some of this time, possibly nosing curiously around Bobby's room. She comes into the bathroom now, Sam can see out of the corner of his eye through the glass, and curls up on Sam's T-shirt, discarded on the floor. She won't come into the shower, of course. Sam has a hazy memory, from earliest childhood, him and Dean and Irri and Bett all bathing together in a tub, the dæmons changing forms while they laughed.

That's a rare childhood memory, completely unalloyed by anything to do with the hunting life or Dad's unhappiness hanging over them.

Dean, in his arms, rubs up against him, moaning, and Sam slides his hands down to Dean's hips, then around to give his butt a possessive little squeeze. Dean likes this. A lot.

Despite all the room they've got in this shower, they don't have the most complicated needs right now. They grope each other in the shower, making each other come by hand, watching each other raptly as they go off, first Dean, then Sam. Dean puts an arm around Sam's neck as though he's drunk. He half looks it, eyes heavy lidded and with that little smile on his face.

When they finally emerge, there's still no one else in the house. They can only look at one another and shrug, now. Privately, Sam wonders if they hadn't better find some other line on this cloud pine branch that Rowena has on her list. If Castiel is unavailable, whatever the reason, there's nothing they can do about it. But they do have a deadline.

They do hang around clothed, in case Cas should pop in, but he doesn't. Dean and Bett go out to bring back food - they don't even need to talk about it, Sam knows he'd better not try to go out anymore unless it's completely necessary - and they watch a movie or two before finally passing out upstairs.

In the morning, they're still alone in the house. But now Sam also feels hyperaware of the fact that Bobby is definitely on his way back now, and that sometimes Bobby chooses to drive an all-nighter instead of stay in a motel, and that he's likely to come rolling in at the most inopportune part of any sex they might try to have. So they don't try. But Dean still gives him a suggestive grin while cooking more of the sausage, rolling two links together side by side with the spatula while they sizzle.

"I can't tell if that's just stupid, or disturbing," Sam complains, and then they both laugh like idiots.


	9. It doesn't matter

There's a lot of sausage related humor over breakfast. Bett gets visibly tired of it and wanders out into the living room. She does like jokes, but doesn't have much patience for sex humor. Especially not super juvenile sex humor. Dean gets that. But it can still be funny.

Bobby rolls in at just about noon. Dean thinks about all the morning sex they might have had, but not in too much detail. Just a wistful kind of hazy montage of lost possibilities. But that's not as important as the fact that Bobby has returned with everything else on their list that isn't the tree branch thing.

And he's only home for about two minutes when suddenly, Cas comes popping in. Dean doesn't even catch the wing sound this time, he's just suddenly there, and Dean narrows his eyes to think, what a coincidence.

But the worry he'd had, about Cas outing them in front of Bobby, doesn't materialize. In fact, later, Dean suspects that Cas might have deliberately waited for Bobby before appearing. Could he really have done that?

If so, it's not to out them. He doesn't seem any different at all. He just says gravely, "I apologize for the delay." But he doesn't even make an attempt at explaining it.

"Well your timing's about perfect," says Bobby, oblivious to everything. "I've got the ash, the head and the relic. The only thing they've got left on the list is the branch of cloud pine."

"Cloud pine," says Cas, frowning a little. It's not even a question, he's just repeating after Bobby. Dean is watching him carefully - he can't help but do that. Cas doesn't seem different… but he doesn't really look at Dean or Sam either, and Dean can't tell, he just can't tell if Cas knows. He glances at Bobby's Theya, standing next to her human. She looks back at him, the same as ever, the naturally grouchy set of her mountain cat face made softer by sweetness.

"Is it a problem?" Sam asks, and Dean's spine goes bolt straight before he realizes that Sam is asking about the pine thing, not about them.

"No," says Cas, "but it is not an ingredient for this spell. It is a powerful object in its own right."

"She did say there was something for herself," Sam points out. "When she made the list she said that. 'A little something'. That must be her payment."

"That would make sense," says Castiel. "But I will have to go to another world to acquire it."

"I thought you just had to travel in time," Dean says, then snorts. "Yeah, that sounds stupid. 'Just'. But I mean, I thought it was just extinct."

"It's both," said Cas, looking at Dean for the first time, and - was there a look in his eyes, something different…? It was so quick that Dean couldn't tell. "It is extinct, and only found in one other world. I can find it, I think. But please give me some time."

"Okay," says Dean. He looks to Sam, but Sam is also looking at Cas, looking puzzled and a little worried. Dean wishes he hadn't said anything to Sam about sins.

"Anything else you need from us…?" Bobby asks, cottoning on a little late to the weirdness in the room. Cas just says, "No," and then he's gone again.

"Huh," says Bobby, to the ringing silence that follows. "That was a little weird even for him. Anything I should know about?"

Dean thinks, No. Absolutely not.

Sam says, "We called him yesterday. He took a while to show. Must be some crazy crap going on in Heaven."

It's a reasonable thing to say, and maybe only Dean can hear how forced it sounds.

Bobby shrugs it off, bless him forever. "Well, at least he's on the cloud pine thing. I've never even heard of it. But if it's a powerful object like he says, then makes sense that that's the payment. I smell sausage. Any left?"

"That was hours ago!"

While Bobby takes his kitchen back and sorts out something for lunch, Dean and Sam slip back upstairs. They've already done their best to remove any traces of having used the master bathroom. In their room, or the room that they use when they're here, they shut the door quietly and then, with only a swift look at one another, grab close to kiss, desperately, as though they've been apart for a year. Just kissing, there's no time for more of course, but it's as hot as anything they've done together somehow. This is the place where they began, as they are now. This is where Dean stood still as a statue and Sam had hugged him and begged him to stop crying. This is the bed where Sam kissed him.

They grapple as quietly as they can. Sam's hands are framing Dean's face, and Dean's hands are clutching Sam's back, gripping his shirt. It's sweet and hot but they know they have to stop. Bobby will call them down and they need to look calm, normal, not red-faced and sweaty with their hair sticking up every which way.

They slow down, until finally they stop. Dean leans into Sam, listening to his heartbeat. Bett is on the bed, apparently watching them.

Then she says, "Castiel was in the living room while you were eating breakfast. I talked to him."

They break apart, instinctively, while turning to stare at her.

"What the hell did you say?" says Dean, but of course he already knows. Now that she's telling him, he knows.

"I said that you're lovers and you're worried he won't approve. He said it doesn't matter."

"Doesn't _matter?"_ says Sam, his voice going up pretty high in surprise.

"It doesn't make a difference," says Bett, as though that clarifies everything. "He's not going to say anything to Bobby. I _thought_ you'd like to _know_."

She sounds petulant now, annoyed that they don't appreciate her efforts. Dean is fucking _flabbergasted_. "You - just - TOLD him," he says, incredulous. "Just like that. What the _fuck_ , Bett?" He can hardly even believe his own dæmon even though he knows she's telling the truth.

Bristling, Bett bares her teeth at them both. "You were worried," she said. "You were freaking out. I don't like it. _We are not ashamed."_ Because of the 'we', it's clear what she means by this. Dean feels a lump in his throat, though he's mad at her for what she did, he's proud of her too. She's right. She's fucking right.

"No we're not," he says, his voice hoarse now. "Of course we're not." It's just that some people won't understand.

"Theya knows," says Bett. "Bobby is just - not seeing it. He is trying not to see it. But they know."

That's - a lot to take in.

"You might've said this before," says Dean, and Bett snaps back, "You might have asked me."

"How was I supposed to - "

"All right," cuts in Sam. "Okay. Cas knows, then. And he's still helping us. Thank you, Bett."

Dean doesn't feel anywhere near as calm as Sam sounds. When he reaches mentally toward Bett, all he can feel is her burning certainty that they're not ashamed. And. Fuck. She's right. They're not. He's not. Of course he's not. They went to Hell for Sam. They'd do it again if they had to. Yes they would. They love Sam more than the whole world. They are not ashamed.

Sam seems to see some of this struggle in Dean's face. He turns toward Dean and wraps his arms around him - not for passionate kissing this time, but for a tight, trembling embrace.

"I'm not ashamed either," Sam whispers to him. Dean knows how much Sam wants to say 'We', to speak for Irri, but - he can't feel her. But he will! He will. Dean's arms squeeze tight around Sam's waist.

One more kiss, hot and sweet, and then they have to break it up. If Bobby is trying not to see it, then they'll try their best not to force him to. It's a carefully balanced compromise, but it will do for now.

Over lunch, Bobby asks, "Do you want me to go with you when you meet up with this Rowena to get the spell done? I could hang back and be nearby in case you need me for anything."

Dean looks to Sam, unsure what to think. Bobby would take his own car and stay in his own motel room, it wouldn't be like traveling with Dad. It wouldn't be the same at all, and yet… The thought of it really does feel kind of like bringing Dad along. Dean's instinct is to say no, to be alone with Sam, but is that for a _good_ reason, or just… Wanting to be alone with Sam?

"I think we'll be okay," says Sam, to Dean's intense relief.

Neither of them have told Bobby about what the beekeeping druids said about her cheating customers. And no one says a word when handing over the royal jelly (which has only a little bit missing from the jar, not even worth mentioning. If Bobby notices any is gone, he never says a thing.)

"Okay," says Bobby, unruffled, poised to take another enormous bite from his sandwich. "Just thought I'd offer. I sure as hell hope it works out all right, Sam." He's kind of looking at them both when he says it. Which makes sense. Because anything that doesn't work out for Sam, doesn't work out for Dean.

But it makes Dean glance down toward Theya. And then he sees Bett hanging out close with her, so he knows they're probably talking together. Although it could be just that Theya likes Bett. She always did, even before Bett settled.

Bobby goes out food shopping, and once again they're alone. Sam smiles wryly and says, "I don't know if I ever felt so much like a teenager as I do right now. Even when I _was_ a teenager."

"I know exactly what you mean," says Dean, already breathless. They can hear Bobby's engine receding down the road.

Then they're on each other as though they've been apart for months, or even years. They don't make it upstairs. They do try to. They end up halfway up the stairs, half out of their clothes, half out of their minds with urgent need. Dean takes Sam's cock into his mouth until it chokes him, not once but repeatedly, until Sam makes him stop by hauling him up until he can return the favor. It's ridiculous and not really very comfortable at all, but Sam does this low humming thing around Dean's cock that makes him shout. They're still on the stairs when they finish: Dean first, and then he slides down for Sam's big finish. It turns out there are some angles that are less likely to choke you, even on a great big cock like Sam's, if you take a little extra trouble. Worth it.

They get sorted out and cleaned up long before Bobby comes back. From the look Theya gives them, though, Dean can tell they're not as innocent looking as they had hoped.

Cas doesn't come back for two whole days. By the time he does return, they're on edge and Dean is so tense he could snap. But then there he is, like nothing was ever weird with anybody. In his hand he has a long tree branch with little tufts of grey-green needles here and there. It's almost like a broom, except that there are extra sweepy parts on the side.

Cas offers it to Sam. Sam, startled for some reason (even though it should be obvious that the items for the spell are all for him really), takes it carefully. "Thanks, Cas," he says, and Dean sees him looking at Cas' face, but all Cas does is nod, perfectly normal, and say, "You're welcome."

Then he glances at Dean, and Dean feels suddenly _exposed_ , like he was hiding behind a curtain and it's been suddenly snatched down, or else he was underwater and all the water has evaporated all at once. _And_ he's naked.

Then Cas looks away again, and finally, Dean gets it.

Only he can't even _believe_ it.

Bett leans hard against his leg, which means that what Dean's trying not to believe is absolutely true.

Well.

That's - that - His mind is stalling out.

It doesn't matter. That's what Cas said, right? It doesn't make a difference.

Because there was never any choice, there was never going to be any choice for Dean. It doesn't matter, it doesn't make any difference whether Cas has - feelings? for him - or not. Because it was always Sam, and it was always going to be Sam.

Maybe it's _Sam_ that Cas has feelings for, Dean tries to work this through as a viable idea. He could understand anybody loving Sam! But Bett wriggles in negation. She knows. It isn't Sam. It's Dean.

It's - strange - how sad it makes him. He likes Cas. A lot. Cas is family. Dean might even be able to say, in the right situation, with the right amount and type of alcohol, that he loves Cas, _(like a brother?)_ yes - but - not like Sam. Not family like Sam, brother like Sam. Cas took him out of Hell, but Dean has loved Sam for almost his whole life. Sam is his life. Without Sam, he has no life.

He needs to make sure that Sam knows that, Dean thinks suddenly. Sam should know, but that doesn't mean he shouldn't be told again, just to be really sure. Because Sam has just cottoned on to what is weird with Cas, if his startled look toward Dean means what Dean thinks it means. If he's not just crazy, imagining all this. What the hell does Dean know?

Bett sways toward Sam as though she'd like to go to him, but is hesitating in front of Cas and Bobby. Dean sends her a mental shrug. _Why not? It's fine._ But she doesn't leave him, just stays there against Dean's leg. Maybe she's right. Maybe it isn't fine for her to do right now, in front of Cas anyway.

Bett is a lot smarter than Dean is about other people's feelings. He doesn't try to argue with her or overrule her now.

Cas is saying, "I may not be able to answer you for some little time now. Events in Heaven are - " He hesitates such a long time that they're all looking at one another. "Chaotic," he finally finishes. "There is civil war. Raphael's forces are well organized, and I have much to plan and coordinate. If you need me urgently I will try, I promise I will try. But it might be best to - not - completely count on me."

Sam says, "Cas. Is your side losing?"

"I hope not," says Castiel. "But I can't answer your question, Sam. Not honestly. I do not know for sure."

His face is sad, like the answer might be Yes but he doesn't dare to even think of it as a possibility. Dean knows the feeling pretty well.

"We'll try not to bother you," Dean promises. "You've done so much for us already. We're grateful, Cas. I mean it."

"You're welcome," says Cas, looking him in the eye more normally this time. "It's the least I can do to help. I brought him out in only one piece."

That's not Cas' fault, Dean thinks. Irri was swallowed up by Lucifer before Cas had anything to do with it. And he would say so, if it weren't for Sam standing right there to hear it.

But Cas doesn't stick around to hear it anyway. He says, "Good luck," and then his wings make the sound and he's gone again.

"That didn't sound great for his side," says Bobby, and it takes Dean a second to catch up that Bobby is talking about the war in Heaven. Of course he is.

Sam is examining the pine branch now, looking closely at the needles, even sniffing at them. Dean can smell them from here, they have a fresh scent like from high cold places, like snow. Bobby moves closer, interested, and Sam hands the branch over to him.

"What d'you figure's so powerful about it?" Dean wonders. It certainly doesn't look like much. But then, lots of powerful objects don't.

"Well, he said another world," Bobby points out, apparently trying to sight along the thing as though it's the world's crookedest pool cue. "So there's not gonna be much use in checking out lore that's all from _our_ world. Wish he hadn't gone so fast. Again. But I guess that's just him being him and all."

He hands the branch back to Sam. Dean is more than a little curious, now, and he takes it to look.

It's solid, cool to the touch, the bark rough and smooth at the same time. It makes his hand tingle. Did it do that when the others touched it? They didn't say anything about it tingling. Dean hands it back to Sam with a shrug, though he hands it back so quick that Sam gives him a funny look.

"Looks like Charlie Brown's Christenmas tree," says Dean, "better hope all the needles don't fall off before we can hand it over."

It's the first stupid shit that pops into his mind to say, because distracting with jokes is a thing he does pretty much automatically. It does work, though. Sam laughs, and is distracted, and Bobby even tops it off with a muttered "Good grief."

Now they've got everything. All that's left is passing the time and going to the location of the next new moon's Hidden Market. Rowena couldn't tell them that in advance, because she wouldn't have known yet, but now they know where it will be, and it's much closer to Bobby's this time around.

But they can't keep staying here to wait, Dean is about to lose his mind with the need for secrecy and quiet. It really isn't that easy for them to be quiet enough. Bobby's house isn't that big, though at least his bedroom isn't right up against theirs. That would be fucking impossible. Well, it would _make_ fucking impossible. Not that they can actually literally fuck unless Bobby is out of the house for a guaranteed amount of time. No, it's time to get out of here.

Sam perks up visibly at the suggestion when Dean makes it. "I could see how restless Bett is, I figured it might be about time," he says. "Privacy would be nice, too."

"Ain't that the truth," mutters Dean.

Bobby isn't surprised at their leaving, of course. And there's no need to even look at Theya. After what Bett said, Dean feels especially averse to tempting fate and making Bobby see what he's trying not to. They make some noise about looking for cases but Dean doesn't really want to risk it - doesn't want to risk Sam, is what it really is. Sam doesn't need any more scenes, or suspicion, or guns pointed at him right now, Sam needs to get Irri back, and that is what's going to happen.

The cloud pine gets packed away safely in Baby's trunk along with the seven ingredients that make up the list. Bobby and Theya wish them luck, and finally they're out, on the move, and it feels good.

Dean looks over at Sam in the passenger seat. Sam looks relaxed and content, and for a second it's so easy to pretend it's all normal, same as it ever was, that if he glances into the back seat, Irri will be there, her eyes warm and wise and her coat shining in the sunshine that's pouring in through the windows.

But then, if she were there, Bett would be in the back seat too, with her. Not up here in the front seat between Dean and Sam. He tries not to sigh.

Sam reaches out, and strokes Bett's back. Dean feels it too, as an abstract warmth, reassuring.

They find some food, pretty mediocre, but also a motel room with a king bed and a really clean bathroom. That's more like it. Dean could wish that the shower was a little bigger, like Bobby's awesome one, but you can't have everything. In a motel, anyhow.

While they're trying to both fit in the shower anyway, Dean says casually, "So, after we get her back. I still kind of like the idea of uh. A place to live. Way out somewhere, not in the middle of other people…"

Sam's hands are on him, soapy and intimate. "You mean," his voice amused, but in a conspiratorial kind of way and not laughing at him, "you want to settle down?"

"Well - maybe? I dunno, is it crazy to want, like. Our own bed?"

He feels completely incoherent trying to get this out, but Sam gets it. Of course he does. His hands are still on Dean, but they're moving more slowly, while he's thinking. "No. That's not crazy at all," he says softly. Then he _is_ laughing at Dean, "You're nesting."

"Shut up!" It's mock anger. Sam is right. He does feel like taking Sam away up in some treehouse somewhere and staying there, alone, just the four of them. Learning to cook better stuff, since they wouldn't be near restaurants. Maybe getting one of those awesome memory foam beds. They'd give it something to remember.

"Sorry, sorry. Couldn't help it." Now Sam's hands are in motion again, stroking apologetically. "I like it. I want that. It doesn't have to be the middle of nowhere, if - if she's back." Sam stumbles on the 'if' but doesn't try to correct himself. Dean frowns. But he doesn't correct Sam either. It's like pointing it out would just make it worse.

"We could use some kind of home base that's just ours," Dean says. _Base_ sounds a lot better than _nest_. But he wonders how they'd even manage it. They'd need somewhere they could call theirs, but what's theirs? They don't have any land to build on, or money to build with. It's a fantasy more than anything. Bobby's house is as close a thing to a home as they've ever had. The house that burned down in Kansas all those years ago has been bulldozed, cleared away - there are two houses on that property now, Dean knows, he's been there and seen it. It all belongs to somebody else.

Apart from the Impala, motels like this one are their real home. Dean has been able to be content with that. Most of the time. But even _when_ they do get Irri back, this idea is going to stay with him, he knows.

"I think we'll have one someday," says Sam, with a gentle voice now, he must notice Dean's kind of distracted by this. And Dean feels a little guilty to be distracted at all. They were so eager to be alone together and now they are. Even Bett is in the other room with the TV on.

"Yeah," Dean says, agreeing instead of arguing with all his gloomy thoughts about not owning anything. "And we got everything we need now, huh?" His hands slide down Sam's back, fingertips pressing in a little to massage the muscles there.

Sam, still smiling, starts to answer but then - Something goes wrong. He goes all still even while Dean's hands are still sliding down, and Dean doesn't know what he's done wrong but Sam reacts - violently - not attacking but - Pulling away, shielding himself, and Dean is so startled he doesn't have any chance to protect himself from Sam's elbow flailing into his face. Hot shock of pain and loss of balance in the slippery tub. Before he knows what's happening he's down on the floor. From the other room, Dean hears a squeal of dismay from Bett, and then things are a little fuzzy for a minute.

What happened? he's asking himself as things start to come back. _What happened?_ he asks Bett.

But he doesn't need to wait for her reply, he realizes what happened. He saw Sam recoiling just before he was hit. Sam didn't even mean to hit him.

But _fuck_ , his face hurts. That's gonna be a black eye if Dean has ever had one to go by, and he definitely has.

And Sam is nowhere to be seen.

Adrenaline surges through his veins and right on its heels comes panic. "Where is he?" he rasps at Bett, trying to pick himself up from the bathroom floor. The water is still on. He's kind of bruised up on one side. Shit! _Where is Sam -_

The door to the room opens and Sam comes back in with ice. He's wild eyed, hair streaming wet, wearing nothing but his jeans, and he looks so miserable Dean's heart wants to break at the sight of him.

"De," Sam is at his side in two steps of those long legs, setting down the plastic ice bucket and carefully helping Dean up to his feet. "I'm sorry - I'm so sorry - I didn't mean - "

"I'm fine," Dean is trying to wave off the help, but that's kind of impossible when it's already been given. "I'm okay, it's fine. _I'm_ sorry."

Yeah, here they are, bruising each other with apologies yet again.

Dean sits down on the bed. Sam goes in and turns the shower off, and comes back with a makeshift icepack for Dean's eye. It was just an unlucky elbow shot, and they've hurt each other worse than this over the years, but Sam is as stricken as though he's just discovered a streak of domestic abuse in himself and he wants to turn himself in to the cops.

And that is just un fucking acceptable. So Dean says,

"I am as sure as shit that I touched you wrong, Sam, I did whatever set you off. You weren't trying to hurt me, you were trying to get away from me." Or someone. "So stop blaming yourself!"

"You didn't touch me wrong," Sam mutters, his eyes downcast. "You didn't do anything wrong. It wasn't - a flashback - exactly."

"Okay, so just call it a stupid accident then! That's all it was."

Dean means his own injuries, not anything else. He means the black eye, and the deep bruise he can feel on his thigh from when he fell down. But Sam flinches at the harshness of his tone.

He even pulls away from Bett when she tries to go to him. That hasn't happened before. Dean feels so completely rejected that he can hardly think straight. But that's selfish and assholish and stupid. All he's got are a couple bruises.

"Sammy," he says quietly. "Let's go to bed, all right? Just lie down, relax, maybe watch something stupid on TV. Or listen to the radio. Whatever you want."

Sam's eyes make a brief appearance, glancing up at Dean before looking down again. "Okay."

It's not a very enthusiastic response, but what can you expect? It's a million miles better than a rejection, anyhow. Dean pulls the covers back on the king bed - maybe two queens would have been better, after all, but that's hindsight for you - and Sam obediently gets in. Dean puts his ice pack down and follows him, carefully. He's not sure how close he should let himself get, and Bett is hanging back, made shy for once in her life by uncertainty.

Sam turns the lights out, so that only the muted TV flicker illuminates the room, then he turns toward Dean, arms reaching out.

"Don't push me away?" Sam says again, like he did that first time. Dean makes an inarticulate noise and slides in close, his heart pounding and pounding.


	10. We need you

Once Dean has fallen asleep, Sam lies there looking at him, watching the bruise slowly forming on Dean's face.

There was no warning at all. Not this time. Not even a thought or a shiver, Sam hadn't thought about the Pit in days. It really had been days.

But then, while they were talking and touching and everything was fine, talking hopefully about the future, _their_ future, Dean's hands on him felt good, kneading at Sam's back, he _liked_ it, he _was_ liking it, when abruptly, Dean had just - for a second - not been Dean. For a second, he'd been Lucifer. Pretending to be Dean. Which was a thing he did, of course. He pretended to be a lot of people, but he really enjoyed pretending to be Dean.

It took only seconds for Sam to recover himself, but in the space of those seconds, he struck Dean in the face and knocked him right out of the shower onto the bathroom floor. Not even trying to attack Lucifer, but cowering and trying to protect himself. How easy would it be for Sam to lose track of himself, and really attack, and kill or maim Dean before he even knew what he was doing?

If Rowena can bring Irri out of him again, will that help fix what's wrong with Sam? Or will it just double the threat, Irri striking at Bett while Sam knocks Dean down?

Bett has been hanging back, which makes Sam feel worse, but now she comes up on the bed, approaching slowly. He lies there watching her, until she comes up around the head of the bed and up to his pillow.

"Are you okay?" she says softly, and Sam had thought he wasn't going to cry, but now he realizes that he's wrong about that. He reaches to touch her, and she immediately comes close and snuggles up against his neck. Some tears get on her fur. She acts like she doesn't even notice.

"I don't know," he whispers. "I can't tell. I just - for a minute I just - " He doesn't even know how to describe it to Bett.

"We understand," she says. "We do. There are people we see in the world, or dæmons, look like this one or that one from Hell. Or something sounds like something we heard. Or a smell." She shudders a little. "Dentist smell. Burning teeth. Bad."

Sam has just gotten some insight into Dean's tooth care regimen. No wonder he wants to avoid dentists so bad. It doesn't strike Sam as even slightly funny anymore.

"I hurt him," Sam whispers. "Look."

"I know," she says, not looking. "I feel it. We love you, Sam."

As though that's a sufficient answer. But Bett certainly seems to think so. She says it to him more often than Dean does, but that's not so much of a surprise. And it's not as though Dean doesn't say it.

"Do you think we'll get her back?" Sam asks her, though why he thinks she'll give an answer different from Dean's he couldn't say.

Bett lifts her head and looks him in the eyes. "We have to," she says. "You need her. We need you."

There's nothing so direct as a dæmon, when they feel like being direct.

"There are whole worlds of people who live like this," Sam murmurs, pointing at his chest, meaning, with their dæmons trapped inside.

"Maybe, if an angel says so, but you weren't born there, and neither was Irri."

Irri. Just her name opens up a whole planet of longing inside Sam, right where Irri is supposed to be. Is that him, or her? It's been so long since they saw one another. He would gladly carry her in his arms his whole life if only he could see and talk to her and touch her again.

He wants Dean to touch her. He wants to see Dean's hand resting on her back, and feel it, and see Irri's happiness. She would love it. Sam knows she would.

And yet it was Dean's hand resting on _his_ back that started all this. It hadn't even been a specific memory at all. Sam doesn't remember Lucifer ever touching him like that. He would make himself look like other people, but he wasn't actually good at playing the roles. Sam was never fooled. He doesn't think fooling him was what it was about for Lucifer, anyway. It would be too easy, too laughably easy, since Sam said Yes to him, there was nothing in Sam that Lucifer did not know. No possibility of holding anything back. Nowhere at all to hide.

Three days, on Earth. That was all it was. But it was so, so much longer in the Pit.

"If it doesn't work," he whispers, "am I broken? I mean - shit - Even if it _does_ work? I'm afraid now, I hurt him, I'm afraid of hurting him, hurting you too. I didn't even understand what was happening before I already did it."

"Aren't we still broken?" she asks, meaning her and Dean. Sam stares at her, shocked.

"Of course not. You're fine."

She just looks at him in a way that makes him hear the echo of his words and wonder what he's even talking about.

"I know it isn't the same," she says. "But it's not so different. We _understand_."

"Can't anybody shut up and let a guy sleep," mumbles Dean.

Sam stops talking and just strokes Bett's fur slowly until she falls asleep, and then he can too. He expects to dream in living Technicolor all about the Pit, but in the morning he can't remember dreaming anything at all. Dean is still asleep, one arm looped over Sam's ribs, and though the bruise on his face makes Sam want to flinch every time he sees it, he does feel just a little bit better.

However, it's not enough that they understand why. Sam has to do better at keeping Dean and Bett safe. Even though he's got no idea how on earth to do that.

Sam can't stop being hesitant for a while after this incident, wary of whatever might set him off, but Dean makes it clear he won't put up with this. "Forget about it. I'm fine. You're getting better. It just takes time."

And Bett won't take no for an answer either, not after that first time. There's no repeat of stuff like baring of teeth, but she sticks so pointedly close to him that someone else might mistake her for his dæmon.

She and Dean are closely aligned on this, and Sam is grateful, though no matter how many times Dean says it, Sam could never really just forget about it, or about anything. How could he possibly forget?

But over time, he supposes, he'll think about it a little less often, and then a little less, until it recedes in time more, until maybe that distance will create some illusion of perspective.

Was that what forgetting was?

With less than a week left until the new moon, Sam sleeps less and less, too restless with impatience and anxiety and anticipation of having Irri back. He stays in the bed with Dean most of the time anyway, thinking, watching him sleep. The black eye Sam accidentally gave Dean is almost completely faded - no one else would really notice it by now unless they were looking for it.

Sam, of course, can't help seeing it. Dean has been so impatient about it, pointing out that it's the sort of thing that happens to them all the time, and there's nothing to get worked up about with this one any more than any other time, but Sam can't make Dean understand how beautiful he is and how awful it feels to have marred that, even temporarily, even accidentally, even in a way he and Dean are more or less used to.

Dean stirs, opens his eyes. "Watching me again?" he mumbles. "You're worse than Cas." Then his sleepy face scrunches up in a scowl. Sam knows he didn't mean to bring up Castiel. They've both been avoiding the subject.

"Sorry if I woke you. I just - It's hard to sleep. It's like she's all worked up, inside me, and she can't sleep so she's turning over and over. And it's keeping me awake."

Dean nods, yawning. Sam immediately feels a spike of guilt. "Sorry. That doesn't mean I have to keep _you_ awake. Go back to sleep. I'll read or something."

Dean is pushing up to his elbows and then climbing out of bed, shaking his head and waving him off. "S'fine." He walks naked to the bathroom, comes back in a few minutes. He crawls back into the bed, and he and Bett bookend Sam, all three of them more or less sharing Sam's pillow. Dean is breathing evenly, his arm heavy over Sam's ribs, and Sam thinks he must be asleep when Dean murmurs, "Need to stop by the bee ladies again. Get our own stash."

"Good idea," Sam murmurs. This time, he doesn't feel guilty if Dean's feeling sore enough to mention it (or even just allude to it.) Sam's learned for himself since that first time that there can be such a thing as necessary roughness, when it's urgently demanded by the willing recipient. And that it can be worth it, that it can be a bonus even, to be able to feel it afterwards, to think about it, shiver with it, how when you can still feel it, in a sense it is still happening. He'd like to be inside Dean forever, except that he also wants Dean inside him forever too. If Dean only wanted one way or the other, Sam feels sure he could have lived with that, that he could learn to love whichever role Dean didn't want. But it can change back and forth between them, without effort. They hardly even have to talk about it. It just ebbs and flows between them, naturally. Like the tide.

He's getting stirred up now, thinking about sex, and Dean sways in toward him, his thigh brushing Sam's cock, his lips hot against Sam's neck.

"Might help you get to sleep," Dean says, and Sam can feel him smiling against his skin.

Sam turns toward him, and feels Bett's fur against the back of his neck. He feels a wave of love for them so strong, it hits him as its own rush of memory, as powerful in its way as any vision of Lucifer. Dean, always there, his whole life, always there for him, taking care of him, doing anything and everything for him. Dean, who has been here all along, the one Sam always wanted, the love of his life. Bett said to Sam, when he asked her if she thought they would get Irri back - _We have to. You need her. We need you._ It's as simple as that. For Dean if not for himself - or put it another way, for Dean as much as for himself. For Dean and Bett, as much as himself and Irri.

And when they've done that, Sam has decided, they are going to find a way to have that home that Dean wants, _and_ damn well deserves - that home base, that nest. The four of them, together, as they're meant to be. They can hunt, or not, as they choose. They'll always be hunters to some degree, simply because they know what's out there - but suppose they actually had lives too? They've given so much. God knows Dean has.

He's just reaching down, hand wrapping slowly around Dean's stiffening cock, when suddenly they hear a voice in the room with them, they are Not Alone and they're instinctively jumping apart.

"I am sorry to interrupt."

Oh sweet Christ it's Castiel. In their room. At least he's not right next to the bed. He's over in the corner and he's turned away, which on the one hand is good because he's not staring at them, but on the other is bad because it means he knows exactly what he's interrupting.

They only have Bett's word for it that he'd said it didn't matter. Neither Bett as part of Dean nor Castiel himself are particularly famous for being completely truthful at all times, though.

They're both snatching at clothes to put on, with pants at a premium. And their clothes look very much the same. It threatens to turn into a stupid comedy sketch, except that Cas says,

"There is a crisis, and I need your help very much. I would never do this if it weren't truly urgent. Raphael is going to win if I can't solve this immediately."

In the midst of panic and adrenaline, Sam feels sorry for Cas in a way he never expected to be able to.  

Dean, still red in the face but able to face Cas now that he has pants on, demands, "What is it? What's the matter?"

"There has been a series of incidents caused by weapons that were stolen from Heaven," says Cas. And he unfolds the whole story for them. He's done well on his own, but he's hit a dead end.

"Before the Apocalypse, a number of powerful weapons were kept safely contained. But in the chaos and confusion wince the war ended, several of them are unaccounted for."

"Wait, you're saying your nukes are loose? What kind of weapons are we talking about?" Dean says sharply. Sam is frowning, trying to imagine how much damage a Heavenly weapon could inflict on innocent people.

"The one causing the recent incidents would seem to be the Staff of Moses," Castiel says evenly. Sam's jaw drops at the thought. Nukes indeed. "Or possibly just a piece of it. It is being applied on an extremely small scale. If it were at full strength, the effects would be felt worldwide. But it's the first clue my side has had since the theft was discovered."

And so, the next several days are spent helping Cas find out that his old friend, thought dead, is only hiding, and embracing hedonism rather than take sides. Balthazar is sarcastic and mostly untrustworthy, but in the end, when Raphael turns up, Balthazar returns with one of the weapons and turns the archangel into a pillar of salt.

There's nothing so old school as angels, Sam thinks. And yet, none of the angels had reacted to Sam's dæmon being hidden. They hadn't even seemed to notice.

They don't manage to get the weapons back, but at least Cas knows who took them, and it might take Raphael some time to find a new vessel. He thanks them before taking off, at least.

"You've helped us a million times," Sam says. "Glad we could do something."

He sees Cas take one more look at Dean, and there it is again, Sam has been able to see it for some time now, whenever the angel looks at his brother. Helpless, unrequited love. Sam used to know exactly how that felt.

Castiel may really be as he claims, a multidimensional wavelength of celestial intent, but he's spent enough time in a human vessel to have human feelings show in that human look on his human face. He's in love with Dean, and until that night just a scant few weeks ago, Sam had always thought that maybe, if Dean didn't end up with Lisa, he would look Cas' way one day and finally see it. And act on it. And Sam would have been as happy as he could be, for Dean's sake, if it made Dean happy, but Sam would have lived out the rest of his life lonely, so lonely. In sight of love but forever out of reach. He'd really thought that was how it would be, or else, even worse, nobody seeing anything, nobody saying anything, and everyone lonely.

Sam sits down on the edge of the less-mussed bed, and though Cas is still here, Bett comes to him immediately and gets into his lap. Startled, he looks up, but though a human would not be able to help reacting to the taboo of a sight like this, the angel doesn't seem to find it strange at all.

But he doesn't linger, either. And Sam is grateful for that.

***

Rowena has been enjoying herself in several fancy houses she knows of, places she helps herself to when the people who own them, people overburdened with too much money and too many lovely things to be able to enjoy them all at once, are elsewhere enjoying their other lovely things. In the downtime between Markets, she's got to live somewhere, but it's never been more important that that somewhere be comfortable but well concealed from any who might try to find her.

Rowena is already vulnerable enough in her recurring role as the thaumaturge, though after this Market, she'll never need that shabby act again. Or the tedious old green tent. She'll be entirely satisfied never to look at a green velvet curtain again as long as she lives. No matter how many more hundreds of years that may be.

Cori, as always, flies far afield of wherever they stay, making sure they're safe, but mostly looking for new little victims to play with and add to his collection. The last place they'd squatted in had had butterflies, arranged all in rows, dead and preserved behind glass in expensive frames. How he'd pestered Rowena to break one of them and let him have the pretty blue one right in the middle of the display! She'd told him no, of course, not because she cares about the stupid butterflies, but because the people in the house would obviously notice it when they returned, and then they'd update their security so Rowena wouldn't be able to use that place again. And that was exactly what did happen, when Cori managed to knock it down anyway. He tore the blue butterfly on the broken glass trying to yank it out, too, so it was nothing but a colossal waste all around, the stupid thing. She'd _liked_ that place. She'd been able to nip down to their excellent wine cellar, too. All gone.

But there's no real point staying angry about that, now is there, when they'll be gone so soon. Rowena's been tired of this world from the moment she fled here. Let Cori have _all_ the rare dead butterflies. And the fairy bees, if he likes. Once they're sure those boys have brought her everything that she asked for, this world can burn down as far as Rowena is concerned. She's leaving. And it would feel just fine to throw a Molotov cocktail over her shoulder on her way out the door.

On that note, she has broken her own most important rule of house hopping. She wants a last few days in her most favorite mansion by the sea, is it her fault the people who owned it had the same idea? Their bodies are piled up in an attic room upstairs, and the stasis spell keeping them from fouling the air with decay will hold until she leaves the house. Her house, now.

She's got a fire going in one of the fireplaces. Not as though she needs one, in this weather, but it pleases Rowena to see the flames, and the spell to light the fire is no effort at all, it's the first magic she ever learned to do, by pure instinct. _A fire to warm me._ And it was the first spell she ever tried to teach Fergus.

But why think of Fergus now, after all this time? Rowena gets up from where she's been sitting on the hearth, and goes to the decanter of wine. She's drained half of it since Cori flew out. Her mind flicks to his: he is flying some miles away, not thinking about her at all. She shrugs, and returns to herself. The people not-rotting upstairs have no friends, she knows. There is very little danger from the outside right now.

Rowena refills her glass and sits back down on the hearth with it. Some people like to look out of windows, see the clouds. Cori is doing that right now as he flies, but what Rowena likes to do is gaze into the fire. She isn't the kind of witch that can see the future; if she were, her life would have gone differently from the start. But she can imagine and remember and let her thoughts drift, and more often than not it leads to magic.

She'd been staring into a fire like this when she understood what use Fergus could be to her.

Rowena drinks deeply from her wine, angry now. Was she supposed to stay there with him and then be taken for punishment, leaving him there alone to starve in that tumbledown cottage, if he didn't freeze to death first? What good would that have done him? What life would that have been? He was a stupid child, slow with spells, slow with everything, a sad whinging excuse for a merrybegot. The only use he had in all the world was his dæmon.

Yes, that's the truth of it. And why can't she think about it? It was so long ago. And it only makes sense to be thinking about it now. The handsome giant with his dæmon lodged inside him is no child, and bears no resemblance whatsoever to that little brat who was hung like a millstone around Rowena's neck the moment he was out of her belly. But it's the same spell she'll be using once she draws his dæmon forth, still unsettled during the transition, and all hers, in the palm of her hand. When she cuts them apart with her special knife, just as when she cut Fergus and his dæmon apart, the burst of energy will be enough to open a door between worlds.

That bitch of a busybody Olivette laid a geas upon her, before that door closed the last time, that Rowena _might not ever harm another child._ (The little bastard was her _own_ child! To do with as she saw fit!) She's waited long years for her loophole. She might not be one who sees the future, but she always knew that there must be a loophole. Hastily-made geases nearly always had at least one. And then, when she was least expecting good news, that last new moon, there he was. A full grown man with his dæmon inside him. Hidden dæmons are unsettled by their very nature. She doesn't care in the least how it happened to the man. That little light inside him is Rowena's ticket home.

And when she gets home, oh how she will make them all pay for the years of deprivation and misery and every last bitter drop of her humiliation. Starting with Olivette. And then returning to Olivette each and every time it occurs to Rowena to do so.

Cori flies back in through the open window, with something alive and struggling held tight in his beak. He could feel her mood from however far he flew, she knows. He's brought something back alive, so that she can watch him kill it. She smiles as she drains her glass.

"Pour us some more," says her dæmon, standing on one foot beside the decanter, his victim, a little moth, now feebly struggling in his claw. "Let's drown it in wine. To celebrate."

He's such a darling sometimes, so good to her. Rowena hardly feels like she deserves it.


	11. Hear me out

Dean is all on edge, on the day before the new moon. They're staying in a place a couple exits down the road from where the Market town is this time, on Bobby's recommendation. Bobby's taste in motels is good. He'd rather drive all night than stay anywhere that doesn't meet his standards, as he's said, often. This place is okay, but Dean is guessing Bobby hasn't actually been here in awhile himself, because it's clearly on its way downhill.

It's a queen-beds only kind of place, too, though that's hardly Bobby's fault that he wouldn't have thought to mention it. He wouldn't even know if a place had anything else. Even when it's Bobby staying in a room by himself, his dæmon is big enough to stretch out on the other bed. Theya will take the floor when she has to, but there's no doubt that a mountain lion needs some space.

Not like Bett, there's always room for a wolverine when she wants to be there.

Sam's in the shower, and Bett's in the bathroom with him. Dean can hear them talking softly, but he's not trying to listen. He even puts the radio on. He already showered, and he's half dressed in anticipation of going to get them something to eat. And drink. But he's so keyed up he can't stop pacing.

Tomorrow… should be tomorrow… Irri will be back to take up lots of space, and Dean will be so happy to see her that he'd let her have a king sized bed all to herself and the rest of them could camp out on the floor. Not that Irri would put up with that, of course. She'd be wherever Bett was. They'd rest together with Bett leaning against Irri like she was a pillow.

Dean can feel a wave of warmth from Bett at the thought of it.

Everything is going to be okay again. Tomorrow. Only it'll be more than okay, it'll be better than it was, because now they're - what they are. Whatever they are. Together, that's what they are.

He hopes it won't hurt Sam or Irri - the spell to bring her out. He's afraid it will, that something as - _big_ as that pretty much has to hurt, and he'll have to be there and watch and listen while Sam suffers, even if it's for his own good. Dean feels like he's done more than enough of that in his life already, and he can hardly stand any more. But nothing can be more important than this. And Dean hasn't forgotten what the beekeepers said about Rowena being a cheat. He's got to be right there ready in case she tries to pull anything over on them.

Sam's finished in there, and comes out in his towel in that way he does, looking like a goddamn movie star. He's got Bett in the crook of his arm, and he smiles at the sight of Dean, who has stopped short to gawk at him.

It makes Dean's heart do a fucking backflip, looking at Sam. _Like fireworks in Heaven._ Bett nuzzles against Sam's side.

Sam's smile turns a little quizzical, his eyebrows going up, even as his fingers give Bett's fur a little answering stroke. "You going somewhere…?" glancing over the clothes Dean has on.

"Not anymore," Dean says, and takes them off.

It gets a little rough. In a good way. Bett actually does retreat to the other bed after a little while rather than get knocked off of the one they're on by somebody's flailing foot or whatever.

Dean has lost his worry, if not of being interrupted by angels, then at least of being harshly judged by them for the supposed sin his and Sam's being together would be. If Cas ever had any other kind of feelings about him, well, Dean can't help that. It was only ever going to be Sam, one way or another, for Dean. He sees that now, he embraces it. Embraces Sam, thrusting deep.

Sam wrestles free of him then and turns his back, looking over his shoulder at Dean, panting. "Come on."

From behind. They haven't done that. Dean hesitates, because he himself doesn't want it like that, he's got his own bad memories from Hell.

"Please, De," and Sam looks like some wild thing, arching his back, teeth bared, his hair still damp, or maybe damp again now with sweat, sticking every which way. "Now!"

Dean puts his hands on Sam's hips and sinks back in, and if it gives Sam bad memories at any point he never shows any sign of it. He moans and pushes back for more of Dean's cock, and he's coming within minutes, shuddering and muffling his mouth in a pillow. Even with the pillow, he's really loud.

Dean wishes he could hear exactly how loud. But Sam's probably right to keep it down. Dean's building up to it, now, ready to come, pounding, pulsing, and just as he's hitting it, hitting the high note, he can see it again, the Irri light inside Sam, right through Sam's back, and he reaches out for her, his hand touching the place where he can see her. It makes Sam shiver all over.

Afterward, he needs to see Sam's face, see his eyes to be sure everything is completely okay. It's not that Sam is showing any distress, but it seems like a risky thing to try doing now, so close to everything being okay. But Sam just gives a sleepy laugh when he realizes.

"It's fine, De. I'm fine. I loved it. I asked you, didn't I?"

"That doesn't automatically make it fine," Dean grumbles, but he lets it go. Pushing it any more will make Sam wonder what the big deal is, and he'd rather not make it a big deal at all. He just doesn't want it from behind, that's all.

"Well it is fine. - You're all keyed up because it's so close now, aren't you? Me too." Sam gathers him in closer and kisses him, long and slow.  

After a while, Sam says, "Listen, Dean. This is important, so hear me out for a second."

His voice is calm when he says it, but there's no way anybody you love can say a thing like that and not have it go straight up your spine like a blast of cold air. Dean glances toward Bett. She's alert, too.

"Okay," says Dean, but can't resist trying to break in, "but if it's - "

"Seriously. Hear me out first. It's not bad, okay? I just, I'm worried about something and I want you to know what it is. Bett thinks I should tell you. Maybe I'm worrying over nothing, all right, so you can just chalk it up to nerves, because tomorrow - well, it's a little scary even when it's something you need more than anything. Like an operation, you know? A big one, like a heart transplant."

Dean nods reluctantly.

"I know you'll be there watching out for me in case anything goes wrong," and here Dean is sure he sees where Sam is going with this and tries to butt in again, but Sam overrides him by talking louder, "no, De, will you _listen?_ This isn't a 'if I die' kind of thing, all right? That's always a risk for us. What I'm worrying about is something else. If everything goes right, and Irri and I are two again - nobody really knows how much of our memory is carried by the dæmon and how much by the human. And there isn't exactly a lot of science on a situation like mine. I'm worried that I might not remember this, this time when she's hidden in me. I'm worried I won't remember _us_."

Dean stares at him, mouth open in horror as he tries to imagine it. What that would be like, how much that would hurt. And how _trapped_ Dean would be -

"Promise me, Dean." Sam's eyes and voice are fierce now. "Promise me that if I forget, you'll - remind me. Kiss me. Tell me everything. Let us start again. Please. I'm so worried you'd - feel like you shouldn't, or that you'd wait for _me_ to try again, and I might never have had the courage to do it if it went any other way. This is - never mind us having a home base, Dean, you're my home base. Don't let me forget. I'll beg you, if you want."

"I promise," Dean chokes out. "I swear."

That seems to be good enough for Sam. He must have asked Bett about this, while he was in the shower, and he had probably assumed she would just say yes, that she'd tell him - she'd been so free with the information when it came to Cas, after all. But she had obviously balked at this, and said it was for Dean to make the promise. She was right of course.

"Thank you," says Sam, and he's definitely got the Feelings look on his face, but it's okay with Dean, in a situation like this. This was a worry Dean hadn't even thought about until Sam shared it, but now they can both feel better. And Dean can't imagine that he would have been able to resist Sam anymore, not now that he knows his feelings are returned, that it was never unrequited, and if it's weird, at least they're both weird.

Eventually Dean gets up out of bed, gets dressed and takes Bett to get some dinner for them. He gets some beer, but passes by two liquor stores without bothering to stop. Tomorrow's a really big day.

When they come back, Sam is lying naked on the bed, smiling, his cock in his hand like he's gotten started already. He would have heard Baby's engine approaching, but it's fun to think he's been at it the whole time Dean's been out. As it is, Dean drops the bags on the floor and bends down to fumble off his boots, and the food is cold and the beer half warm by the time they crawl out of the messed-up bed to fortify themselves. It's delicious, though. Salty, greasy, foamy, they make as many filthy noises eating as they do fucking.

They do their utmost to wear each other out so they can sleep. But it's past midnight before Dean even starts to feel really tired. Bett has been watching her time travel marathon for the evening but now it's gone to commercials again, and she loses all interest.

They'll need to shower again in the morning, they're both sticky, and salty, but that's nothing but a sign of a night well spent, as far as Dean is concerned. Now that he's reassured Sam with his promise not to let him forget, Sam seems completely happy, as though tomorrow has already come and Irri is here beside them.

"Sleep now," Bett says, bossy, addressing them both. "You're tired, stop trying to think."

Sam laughs a little. "Yes, Bett. You're right." He smiles at Dean. "She's almost always right."

It's hard not to feel warm when someone praises your dæmon, especially someone you love. Bett is wonderful, she's clever and adorable and strong. And yes, she's pretty much always right. Dean can't help smiling.

He lies there for a while trying to sleep, not fighting it at all, but his mind keeps presenting him with possibilities, trying to imagine the unexpected. They'll need some general magical protection, just as a bare minimum - there's a variety of things in the Impala's trunk, not all of them useful for this case, but slipping a protective amulet each into one of their pockets can't hurt.

And Dean will have an iron knife, as well as the silver one he usually carries. You never know what will work on what, though being stabbed with any kind of knife isn't fun or healthy for most creatures. Rowena hadn't seemed like she was a hellion, her little bird dæmon hadn't shown any of the signs, but she did know Dean and Sam were charmed against them.  

It seems like a blink of Dean's eyes, and then it's morning, soggy and grey through the curtains, and Sam is asleep next to him. His dark hair is a wild mess all over the pillow. Sexy. Ever since they've become lovers, Dean has not made one single smart remark about Sam's hair. He likes it. He doesn't have to feel jealous about it now he's allowed to touch it.

Dean could grow his hair out if he wanted to. It's just that it would make him look like a total douchebag. Dad never actually made him cut his hair so short once Dean was old enough to have any preference about it. It was just that he'd gotten used to how he looked by then.

Sam isn't dreaming right now, he's just deeply asleep, his hand lying beside his face on the pillow, palm open, fingers relaxed. He slept like that when he was a little kid, and Irri would change to something small so she could fit on the pillow with him. But Sam's bigger than life now, and it's Bett tucked in against his neck. Dean wonders where the light of Irri might be inside Sam right now. But he's pretty sure he can guess it's right there in Sam's throat, next to Bett.

Dean gets up carefully, and Sam doesn't stir at all, breathing deeply. Bett twitches an ear, but he can feel how comfortable she is and he's fine with her staying where she is while he gets in the shower.

Today. It's today. He's got to be ready for anything, to take care of Sam and Irri once it's all done, to tell Sam, if he doesn't remember… Sam made him promise, and he's got to keep it, but Christ it sounds hard, and Dean hopes so much that he won't have to do it, that Sam will remember everything and it was just worrying before an operation, like he said.

It's an operation that had better go right, or else… or else…

Dean has nothing to finish that thought with. Nothing at all.

His worrying must have made Bett restless, because Sam is wide awake by the time Dean gets out of the shower. He grimaces in apology, but Sam doesn't seem to mind. Probably the both of them got as much sleep as they could have anyway. And neither of them are especially hungry. Some coffee and a donut would be nice, though. He can go and get some while Sam's in the shower. There's a place half a block down, even has a drive-thru. "Be right back," he calls through the bathroom door to Sam. Sam makes a vaguely affirmative sounding noise.

Dean gets into Baby, pulls out of the motel parking lot and drives over to the Go Go Donut. He could have walked, but why when he doesn't have to? He orders a half dozen assorted and a couple of coffees, and when he drives around to pay for it, the girl at the window is kind of cute and banters with him in a friendly kind of way - and then he sees her face change as she looks past him into the car, and then she says,

"Where's your dæmon?"

in a voice of puzzled confusion, not horror or fear or anything, but the very question hits Dean like a punch in the gut, because -

Where is she?

She's not with him? How is Bett _not with him?_

"Sir…?" says the girl, sounding scared now, probably at the look on his face. Her own dæmon, a bright green lizard with his tail wrapped around her neck, doesn't say a word.

In the blankness of terror Dean remembers one of the various excuses he thought up to cover for Sam and Irri in case they needed to.

"She's - under the seat. Again," he says with a weird little laugh, the best he can do. "She uh. Always does that when I'm hungover."

"Ohhh," and the girl is reassured, and then with an apologetic little laugh she lowers her voice to a near whisper, "Sorry! Poor thing must be miserable. Here, this'll help," and she hands over his order, and he nods and smiles a little (he thinks) and takes it from her, but all the while his brain is boiling over with panic. _Where are you?_

 _Here with Sam,_ she says, in a 'duh' tone. _He's almost done, come back._

He does a crap job of parking the Impala, and he spills coffee all over himself, getting back into the room. Sam has just opened the bathroom door, and is looking curiously at Dean, the way he's just burst in, the stuff in his hands, and then Sam looks down at Bett by his own side.

"Wait a minute," he says, but before he can say anything else, Dean has dropped both coffees and the donut bag and is reaching out for Bett, to snatch her up against his chest, which is heaving with sudden panic. Bett squirms in annoyance.

"It's not my fault the door was shut," she complains. "You didn't even notice."

"Wait," Sam is shaking his head, wide eyed, "wait, you went - Dean did you _drive_ somewhere, you went far enough from her that you drove - "

"It was just down to the corner," Dean says, and his voice sounds weird and small and scared to his own ears.

"We've been farther apart than that," says Bett, squirming harder, "You're getting coffee all over me, let go!"

He does let her go then, but it might just be that his arms have gone kind of slack. She jumps down to the floor, and shakes herself all over as though she's wet.

"What do you mean?" says Sam. "What do you mean you've been farther - "

"She means in Hell."

Sam stares at him like he doesn't understand. Dean takes a deep breath. Better to cut to the chase, get this over with. But Bett speaks before he can.

"One of the things Alastair did to us. Pulled us further and further apart. Till we couldn't see each other, couldn't find each other. Till I screamed - "

"You couldn't help it," says Dean, but there's no force to his words because he can't seem to get enough air in his lungs.

"Of all the things he did to us, all the cutting and crushing and carving and burning that would be undone when we were made whole again, this was the thing that lasted. Every time he pulled he took us further apart - so far it felt like dying all over again - like crossing an ocean of death. He did it again and again until I begged Dean not to let him do it anymore. I screamed for _Dean_ to make it stop, I blamed him for us being there in the first place, I went crazy, I was weak." Her claws are digging into the floor right through the carpet. "I broke us."

Dean is staring at his dæmon, almost as horrified as Sam looks. To him, now, their time in Hell is mostly a dark, nauseating blur. Unpleasant shapes form out of that blur sometimes. But Bett sounds like they just crawled out and everything is crystal clear to her, every moment still present with her.

"Bett," says Sam, his voice and face aching with Feelings.

"Bett," says Dean. He's got enough breath to talk, now, and he doesn't know what he's going to say until he hears himself say it. "We _had_ to break. That's what we were there for. To break the seal. We'd never have gotten home if we didn't."

"But we didn't know that," she moans. "It's not like we _knew_ that."

Dean and Sam look at each other.

"Did it hurt, when he moved apart from you this morning?" Sam asks.

"No," Bett says, a little contemptuously. "A little distance like that? _He_ didn't even feel it."

Dean feels ashamed, now. "I was thinking about today," he admits. "Too keyed up to sit down for real food." Now he remembers the stuff he dropped when he came in, and looks to see if any of the donuts are salvageable. Between him and Bett, they're really doing a number on this motel floor.

"How far apart can you go?" Sam wonders, all science now.

"I didn't even know we _could_ ," says Dean.

"At least a mile," says Bett.

Bett tends to be a little vague about distances greater than a mile, Dean knows. She might mean anything from, say, 1.25 miles to fifty. Or a hundred. Most of the thinking about numbers is usually in the human half.

Sam knows that too. But even one mile exactly is a hell of a long way for anyone's dæmon to go from them without it being torture, or outright killing them. Even a half, a _third_ of a mile would hurt really bad (and the Go Go Donut can't be any further from here than a third of a mile.)

Sam has been in his towel all this time, which is nothing short of distracting. Now he gets dressed, and Dean remembers he's soaked himself in coffee and could at least use a change of shirt. They need to do some laundry soon.

Tomorrow. The four of them can all go together to do that ordinary, mundane thing, and it'll be as awesome as a vacation as far as Dean's concerned.

One of the coffees is a total loss, but the other one mostly survived, and five of the donuts are fine. They share the salvage between them, and the caffeine and sugar might not actually help anything, but they definitely don't hurt. Dean still feels a little stunned about the weirdness of this morning, but it's not like they don't know how this happened. When they were pulled repeatedly like that, the effect lasted not only in Hell, but since they've been back. And Bett knew it. He wonders if she's experimented while he was sleeping, seeing how far she could go - how she did it, where she could have gone.

What would have happened to them both if something went wrong. His mind's eye shows him a grim sequence of her on a truck somehow, being carried away and away along a highway until they hit even an extended limit and she goes out and miles away, Dean dies in his sleep and doesn't even know what happened. He shudders.

Bett is still upset enough to be flinching away from Sam, so Sam turns to Dean and wraps his arms around him, tight. Dean can feel him trembling a little, as they're pressed together. He has a feeling that that's Irri, vibrating inside Sam, pressed up against him.

"I love you," Sam says, and Dean can hear the trembling in his voice, too. He grips Sam tighter in return.

"Love you too, Sammy."

Bett unbends enough to come close and lean against Sam's leg for a moment before moving away, like a cat.

It's time to move on. Wherever they sleep tonight, it won't be here. Dean hands over a little extra money when he hands in the keys with an apologetic shrug. "Dropped my coffee. Sorry about that."

It's not like he has to, but Bobby gets territorial about 'his' places and Dean doesn't want a complaint to get back to him.

Bett is staying closer to him than usual now, as though she's trying to make a point of it.

"I know you could've called me back to you before I even got in the car," Dean tells her. "You wanted to know how long it would take me to realize, right?" He lifts her up and holds her snuggled against his side with one arm, the way Sam likes to do with her.

"Not in a science kind of way. Not as a test," she says. "I didn't know how you'd feel when you realized it. Even Irri didn't know about this."

"How I'd _feel?_ I was scared, I couldn't believe you weren't there with me, and I didn't know where you were."

"I know that," she says impatiently. "But you saw how it made Sam feel. His face, when he realized. It's bad, isn't it? It isn't normal."

"None of us are normal, Bett. That doesn't make us bad." He hugs her with both arms. "I love you. I don't blame you for anything you said or did when we were in Hell. You were right, it was me who got us there, and we had to break, we had to do it, you saved us doing it, stop breaking your heart over it. We got a second chance, didn't we, we got out, we gotta live now while we can."

They're standing next to the car as he says this, and Sam has glanced out once or twice from inside, but is obviously trying not to stare or listen in.

Bett leans against him for a long minute without saying anything. Finally she sighs.

"Okay. I'll try. I love you too." This last is said with grouchy impatience, like she can't believe he would make her say it aloud. He gives her another squeeze.

"Come on. They're waiting."


	12. Shall we begin

Sam cradles a spare hoodie of Dean's inside his jacket to simulate his dæmon, and thinks hopefully that this is the last time he'll ever have to do this. Also, that if he loses Dean's hoodie Dean will never let him hear the end of it.

Suppose when it's all over, Irri is so weakened that he'll need to carry her? Suppose Sam is the one who needs to be carried? What will Dean do? They should have let Bobby come after all, he thinks. To keep an eye out. And yet Sam can't find it in himself to regret being alone with Dean these last nights. However this goes today, Sam feels hope for their future.

Dean is holding Bett too - the ground is muddy and she doesn't want muddy paws any more than Dean wants muddy paws in his car. _Irri_ , Sam realizes, remembering about her in a way that makes him disoriented for a second. Irri's paws will get muddy. They'll need to put something down in the back seat.

"Sammy," says Dean. "You okay?"

He reaches out with his free arm to touch Sam's shoulder. Sam tries, he tries so hard, to give Dean a smile and look like he's not worried to death.

"Sure, I'm, I'm fine," and he can tell by Dean's and Bett's faces that he's done exactly the opposite of reassuring them.

"We're scared too," says Bett. "We need you."

"All right already," Dean grumbles. "Leave some of the chick flick moments for me." Sam can laugh, just a little. Dean lifts his hand from Sam's shoulder to touch his face.

"We're gonna do this," Dean says softly. "We're gonna get this done. You're gonna be fine, Sammy, you got me?"

Sam catches his breath, and nods.

They're standing by the trunk of the Impala. Dean starts to reach in, checks himself, and grabs the bag of ingredients for the spell, all wrapped (where necessary) and gathered together in an old duffel of Bobby's. He holds the trunk open, eyebrows raised, and waits for Sam to grab the long bundle that is the branch of cloud pine. It's only separate because it's too long to fit in the bag.

It makes sense for each of them to carry one thing, plus their dæmon (or semblance of one.) It's just that it seems like Dean is avoiding this thing, for whatever reason Sam can't guess. It does have a strong fresh smell to it, even through the cloth it's wrapped in. Maybe it makes Dean sneeze, some things do. But it's not bothering Sam at all.

With everything in hand and the car secured, they head over to the Market, Dean leading the way as they spot the now familiar tent and tables of the fairy beekeepers. However hilarious the women might find it that they want more of the royal jelly already, Sam is willing to take that fall. It'll be worth it.

But he can see even from a distance that they're not in a laughing mood today. And their display of bees inside their air-magic hive is no longer lazy or hypnotic, but disordered and angry. Even the sound they make is different to Sam's ears. He glances at Dean and finds both Dean and Bett staring at the bees in dismay.

The two women are having what looks like an argument, both visibly upset, but it doesn't seem to be a personal argument, they're talking about the hive as far as Sam can tell.

"The queen's missing," Dean mutters, as they step close enough to hear that's exactly what the druids are talking about: Where they're supposed to find another queen, this late in the season.

The bees - Sam is looking right at them when it happens, there's no doubt about it - all orient on Dean and Bett, and the noise they're making changes. Not angry, but quieter than before, expectant. Dean, wide eyed, stares at them, then looks to the druid women, who have stopped their talk to stare.

"How are you doing that?" says the woman with the cat.

The woman with the rooster is frowning with suspicion at Dean. "Was it you? Have you got her?"

Her partner puts a pacifying hand on her arm. "No, stop, no. I'm sure it wasn't him."

"I'm not doing anything," says Dean, looking from them to the bees, and then to Sam. Bett is staring at the bees in rapt fascination.

"They like him," says the woman with the cat.

"I can't believe they'd like _anything_ right now," says the woman with the rooster. Her dæmon looks subdued, his comb drooping, and the other woman's cat is upset, tail twitching.

"Sorry, but - may I ask - what's happened?" asks Sam. "You said 'her'. Has something happened to the queen?"

The way they look at one another is all the answer that's necessary. Sam winces in sympathy.

Sam likes to read widely on many subjects, not just lore to aid in hunting, or fiction for entertainment. He's always enjoyed learning things. The hardest part of any school he's ever been to has been the other kids.

Beekeeping may as well be a sort of science fiction, too, in that it's completely impossible for someone who lives a nomadic life to do. So Sam has read avidly about it, though it's been several years since he did. He knows enough to know that a queenless hive is in trouble. And if it's late in the season for fairy bees as they were saying, and they can't replace her in time, the hive may be doomed to die.

"She's just missing," the woman with the cat tells Sam, "with no sign of how. We got here early this morning to set up, everything was normal, then suddenly she was gone." She glances aside to the other woman, who shrugs, tight-lipped, as though to say _you may as well go on since you've said so much._ "With ordinary hives, it can take days to notice a lost queen, but with fairy bees, it's obvious immediately. They know." Then she grimaces and shakes her head in self-annoyance. "I mean, I'm sure mundane bees know, too, when it happens to them, but ours can tell us."

"How?" Sam wonders, his eyes on them again. There isn't time for a case right now, they're here for something really important, but he can't help but ask. It's fascinating. "Is it something you learn, or something they learn?"

"A little of both, really," she says, pleased at his interest in the subject, but clearly unable to focus on a lot of talk about it in the circumstances. And maybe it's a trade secret, too. Sam is embarrassed. He looks down, remembers to cradle his false dæmon. Irri would be leaning against his leg right now if she could.

They'd been hoping to buy more of the previously hilarious royal jelly, but it occurs to Sam now that if their hive is queenless they may not have any more of it to spare. It feels as though he ought to buy something. He wishes he liked honey; Dean doesn't either.

"I'm sorry about your queen," Sam says politely. She gives him a wan smile and a little nod of thanks. Sam turns to Dean, but Dean is still looking at the bees, and the bees are looking at him.

Sam finally pulls him away, and as they walk on Dean is shaking his head as though he's just woken up from a dream.

"That was weird," is all he'll say. "I wonder what happened."

Bett, for once, has nothing to say at all. She's looking over Dean's shoulder at the hive as it recedes in the distance.

They don't stop at any of the other booths, and they manage to avoid the eye of the manic organic herbs and roots man and his parakeet dæmon. It's not exactly first thing in the morning, but it's still fairly early in the day, and the mud and grey sky give everything a weird, surreal feel. And Sam is nervous. No, he's scared. And instead of it being distributed between himself and his dæmon, he's got to carry it all himself. That will finally end today, he thinks. One way or another.

The deep green of Rowena's tent looks vivid to Sam's eyes against that surreal dreariness. His heart is pounding frantically now, and he grips the branch he's carrying, through the cloth it's wrapped in. Then he looks to Dean.

Dean is looking back at him, and his eyes, too, look vividly green on this dreary morning. Not the clear green of emeralds, but the dappled green of moss agate.

"Gonna be okay," Dean whispers.

He doesn't know that, of course. He doesn't know any more than Sam does what's going to happen. But it's always been Dean's job to do this, to tell Sam it will be okay. He even said it before Lucifer - though only once, and not all that convincingly at the time, as Sam remembers it. But he tried, just the same.

"Love you," he says, so quietly that he's really only mouthing it, but Dean understands and quirks his beautiful mouth at Sam in a little sideways smile that makes Sam want to grab him close, kiss him breathless, drag him away so they can be alone. Run away, away down the road.

Anything but this, here, where they are. Because Sam is scared that something is going to go badly wrong, and he doesn't know why. He's been nervous about it, of course. And there's always an adrenaline spike before they have to go into action as hunters. But. This feels different.

Of course, it _is_ different. Sam and Irri are in a situation that has not happened to others before. They've had to do some desperate things before, him and Dean - _and_ deal with shadier characters than this thaumaturge lady. It's normal to be scared, it's _sensible_ to be scared. In fact he'd have to be a fool not to be.

The hand that's been cradling the rolled-up hoodie in his coat is now absently rubbing at the center of his chest. Sam glances around, but nobody is near to see or wonder about it.

No more dragging his heels. Time to go in.

They find, however, that they can't just enter the green tent. There's some kind of invisible barrier at the opening. They can't even see into it: it's not dark inside, but magically vague.

"Hello," Dean calls in. "Rowena?" He glances at Sam, then back at the tent. "We have an appointment…?"

From inside, sounding very far away, her voice, singsong and impatient. "Just a _mo_ ment...!"

It's more than just a moment. The several minutes that they wait feel longer to Sam than all the weeks he's passed since he got out of Hell. Of course, most of that time has been spent with Dean. Dean is by his side here too of course, but now they've come to the point where Sam must go through this effectively alone. Dean can't help with this; as far as Sam knows, only Rowena can.

Finally she calls out, "You can come in!" and though the view through the tent flap remains vague, they can pass through it now. Inside has a floor and not muddy ground, and Dean lets Bett down to explore.

"Sorry for the wait," Rowena tells them, smiling very graciously. "Had to tidy up in preparation. Big spells need room to breathe, you know!"

She's very dressed up, compared to last time. Not that she had been exactly slovenly last time, but now she's wearing an expensive looking black velvet gown, with her hair done up in an intricate style, and she's wearing diamonds in her ears and around her neck. A _lot_ of diamonds. A Mae West movie's worth of diamonds. If they're real, Sam's never seen so much wealth gathered in one place before.

Rowena's little bird dæmon flies down to her shoulder from somewhere above. The interior of the tent violates physics in several directions; Sam wonders what all various types of magic have gone into this useful effect, and whether it could be possible in the future to have a home base like this, something that looks small and unassuming, but has everything they need inside.

But when he lands on her shoulder, she scowls and waves him off. "Cori! I _said_ not on my new dress!" and he circles her sullenly before settling on the back of a chair.

Dean clears his throat. "We've uh. Brought you everything you asked for," lifting up the old duffel bag by way of illustration.

"Oh, let's see," Rowena says, and pulls a little table forward to set the bag down on. Dean opens it for her, and she lifts out the contents one by one, cooing with approval. "Heart, good, ash, yes, bone, perfect, and this head'll do…" talking to herself more than to them, setting the items down as she names them, and giving Dean back the bag at the end. Then she turns to Sam, her eyes very bright, and Sam wonders uncomfortably if she might be on something… some mundane drug like cocaine, or the magical equivalent. Like hellion blood. He remembers feeling the way she looks right now.

She gives him a once-over with her hungry, scary expression, then fixes on the long wrapped bundle he's still clutching in his hand. (The other hand has stopped pretending there's a dæmon hidden under his coat.) "And this? Is this what I think it is? Did you really get it for me?" She holds out eager hands, clawing a little at the air.

Sam holds it out to her, and she snatches it from his hand, turning away with a little dance that, though charming on the surface, makes her seem more than a little crazy to Sam's eyes. But this must be his own nerves, making him worry about her competence now, when she's just obviously pleased to get her hands on this extinct piece of wood, whatever she wants it for.

She's exulting as she unwraps it, and her dæmon flits closer to have a better view, though he is mindful this time of Rowena's expensive dress and doesn't try to sit on her shoulder again.

"Oh, smell those needles!" she's saying as she unrolls it from the cloth. "It's been most of forever since I smelled that fine smell, oh come to me - "

She holds it up in one hand, looking up at it, excited - then her dæmon makes a discordant, shrieking noise like an ugly laugh, and Rowena's face changes from delight to fury in an instant.

"What's the matter?" asks Sam, startled. Did they bring her the wrong thing? After all that?

"This - this," she is so angry she can't seem to get the words out. She shakes the branch at them. "This _belongs_ to someone, are you _mad_ , this branch of cloud pine has already been claimed!"

"I don't know what you're talking about," says Sam. He looks to Dean. Dean looks pale. So Sam goes on.

"You didn't say anything about that, you only said 'branch of cloud pine', we didn't even know what that was! We had to send an angel to another world to find it. He didn't _take_ it from anybody." He doesn't _think_ Cas took it from anybody. He doesn't know it for sure, but Cas would surely have to have mentioned it if anything like that had happened…? Or maybe he didn't think it worth mentioning?

"This is useless to me," she snarls, "worse than useless, it belongs to some other witch and it will never serve me, never answer to my hand. It might even bring them to me so that they might get it back!" She tosses it to the floor, wiping her hand contemptuously on the velvet of her fine black dress.

Sam looks to Dean, and he assumes they're both wearing that pale, stunned, sick expression. They never anticipated this - that Cas would bring them something they wouldn't be able to use. That possibility never even crossed Sam's mind, despite all the worrying he's been doing about every other possible variable.

"What can we do?" says Dean. "Do we - try and get another one?"

It's a crushing disappointment. To wait another month. And that would be assuming that Cas would answer them when they called, _and_ that he would be able to find another branch, and that _that_ branch would not turn out to belong to anyone else. How could it have happened? Who else could it belong to?

…Did she say 'witch'?

"No," Rowena snaps, and she closes her eyes, visibly gathering her patience. "It can't be helped; you weren't to know; there's no way you, or an angel could have been able to tell it had been claimed. Only a witch could feel it. So. It can't be helped." She takes a deep breath.

"You did bring me what I asked. And this spell needs to be done now. Today. I'm not waiting one more moon, we'll not be back here, will we Cori? You," she opens her eyes and looks at Dean, "you should wait outside. This won't be pretty. I can't have any interruptions, or things could go very wrong, do you understand me?"

Sam's instant spike of panic at the thought of Dean leaving him alone for this is instantly soothed by Dean's answer. "I won't interrupt your spell, but I am not leaving my brother."

She narrows her eyes at Dean, and Dean says, "I know how spells work, I'll stay clear of your circle."

"And your dæmon," she says. "She stays clear too."

"Of course, and my dæmon," Dean says impatiently. Bett gives a haughty sniff, like an audible shrug. Sam knows it's bravado.

He turns to Dean, leans down and hugs him. Dean's arms grip Sam's back, desperately tight. They don't say a word. They've already said everything.

"All right, he's not leaving for the wars," Rowena says lightly, and Dean finally lets him go.

Rowena makes a circle on the floor with symbols painted in blood and ashes. She has made a brush from her own hair, Sam can see it glinting red before it's covered up in 'paint'. The diamonds she's wearing glitter in the light from a lamp and many candles.

Sam is in the center of this circle, seated in a plain wooden chair. "Normally I'd have you stand, but then I'd need a stepladder," she'd said when she sat him down. He tried to smile, but doubts it came out well.

He's scared. And Dean and Bett look scared, over in the corner there. A look he's seen on them before. Before he went into the Pit.

Sam isn't sure whether, having been Lucifer, he's even allowed to pray to god now. But he does, now, as he meets Dean's eyes for the last time before the spell begins. _Please let this work._

"I'm ready," Rowena announces, and her dæmon comes to sit on her shoulder again, and this time she's too busy to brush him off. "Shall we begin?"


	13. She is mistaken

Dean stands there, rigid, eyes wide, watching Sam's face. Sam looks pale. Dean is sure he probably does, too.

Even Hell didn't have a torture quite like this, of standing here watching and waiting, and fighting dread you don't even want to name or else you'll make it happen.

Rowena has a little cauldron on the table and a fire leaps up as she adds ingredients for the spell. She is chanting what Dean at first thinks is Latin and then realizes isn't - or if it is, it's the Latin of some other world. She's a witch, it seems. So she's not exactly from around here.

Sam's face is relaxing now, looking more dreamy than scared. Rowena moves in a circle around her table, chanting in that strange, sideways not-Latin.

The light inside Sam is glowing very bright. Dean can see her.

Rowena is in front of Sam now, her hands reaching toward his chest as though to coax that shy light out. But it's not coming out.

"Ah," Rowena says, "she's not hidden. She's hiding. Poor thing."

Why 'poor thing'?

Irri _hiding?_ Is Sam having second thoughts about this? Is that why? Is Irri resisting for a good reason? Does she know that it won't work? Dean steps closer to the circle, feeling panic develop inside him.

"Time to come out now, lass," Rowena says, and _reaches_ again, this time with a force that even Dean can feel from outside the circle, with her facing the other way. Bett gets pulled forward a step before she can dig her claws in to the floor.

Sam jerks, his face reacts, mouth opening, and the firefly light of his dæmon finally bursts free, not out of Sam's mouth like Dean was halfway expecting, but from his chest, as though she'd been in his heart.

"Yes," Rowena shouts, her hands cradled around Irri - the light of her flickering and jerking. Then it flits free, seeking to go back to Sam.  The bird dæmon, Cori, lunges to snatch at Irri with his claws. Sam just sits there looking stunned, blinking in confusion.

"Get off of her!" Dean shouts, horrified. They're manhandling Sam's dæmon, never mind doing a spell, this is not okay! "What are you doing??"

Rowena turns to give him a look over her shoulder that turns Dean's blood to ice with how crazy it is. "I'm going home," she says, and then she pulls out a knife. "That's what I'm doing."

Dean is shouting, "NO," before he even realizes what the knife is really for. He's struggling forward against an increasingly powerful forcefield or something, his steps slow as in a bad dream. Beside him Bett is doing the same thing, growling and snarling as the magic holds her back.

Because Bett understands, before Dean does, what the knife is really for.

Rowena waves her dæmon aside, Dean sees him flying up, he sees the blade in Rowena's hand, some strange metal, not silver or iron, nothing special to look at, but she has Sam's dæmon clutched in one hand, and a knife in the other, and she's shouting more of the strange words, and just before she does it, Dean understands.

Dean understands that his world has ended, watches it end, as the knife flashes down and cuts Sam's dæmon away.

The massive explosion of white light that follows it obliterates Dean's senses, and is a relief.

…

Time has stopped.

Not just a metaphor, or a feeling. Time. Has stopped.

Dean has experienced this before.

"Hello again, Dean," says Death.

Dean is on the floor. He pushes himself up till he's on his knees. It's all he can do. Bett doesn't bother getting up, she just lies there, he can see her trembling.

In that other world they lived in, just a few seconds ago - Dean would have wanted to comfort her. Now there's no more comfort, this other world doesn't have any.

_Sam._

Bett moans.

Death stands there, as composed as ever, like a cross between Mr. Rogers and an undertaker, and the shadowy winged dæmon that rides on his back flickers and shifts, like it always does. He's got his scythe, though he holds it as casually as a folded umbrella, of course he's here on business.

Because _Sam_.

"You'll take us too, right?" Dean grates out. "Just take us now, with them? I'll, I'll tell you where your ring is - "

"I know where it is," Death says, and lifts his hand to show that he's wearing it.

So much for the theory that Death is some kind of angel, if he could get at it in the place Dean hid it. Though maybe some other kind of creature found it for him. He'll have to ask Sam -

Can't. Never again.

"Please," says Dean, and it's awful to hear himself, begging and crying to Death. "If you don't we'll do it ourselves as quick as we can, I got a knife right here - but you could at least let us go together," these last words are almost unintelligible, but Death shakes his head and says,

"I'm not here for Sam."

"What…?"

Death is patient. He would be. "I'm not here for Sam, Dean. Or for you. Sam is not dead."

"Not - dead _yet_ you mean - " Because of the time stop. Because Death is pausing before he does it. Dean never thought Death would be the type to gloat.

"Not dead or dying. I told you: I am not here for him or you."

"Then - why - What do you want then?"

Death tilts his head, and the wings shift again. "I understand the reason for your rudeness, Dean. Nonetheless, restrain it. Now of all times, you must think clearly. I like you. And your dæmon. I'm not sure why. Perhaps because you've died so many times. You have a pleasing familiarity."

A tiny smile on those dry lips. Death thinks he's being hilarious, Dean suspects. He wipes his face with the back of his hand, staggers up to his feet.

"I am here for Rowena," Death goes on. "She has forfeited her life to me by violating a geas laid upon her, in doing harm to Sam and his dæmon in order to open a world gate. She believed she was protected by a loophole, but she is mistaken."

"Okay," slowly, wiping his face again, "but what's that - "

"I need you to listen carefully, Dean. I have stopped time here, to speak with you, as a favor. I would help you if I could. What has been done to your brother  is despicable. But I cannot turn time back. Neither Sam nor Irria are dead, for they are very strong, much stronger than a child. But they have been cut apart forever, Dean. There is nothing that can undo this. I cannot; the angels, the _arch_ angels cannot. God, perhaps - perhaps. But He has been gone a long time. I would not count on His help now."

"Why are you telling us this?" says Bett, rearing up angrily now. Dean can feel and share her horror and disgust and grief to hear this, to know this. _Cut apart forever._ This is worse than death. Worse than Hell. Worse than anything. They never even thought to talk about an outcome like this. But he knows for sure: Sam would not want to live this way.

"Indeed," says Death, "Why _am_ I telling you this?"

He looks around him, stoops and picks something up in his free hand. It's the branch of cloud pine, lying where Rowena threw it.

Dean feels a weird premonition creeping up his back.

"You think _we_ can do something about it," Dean says, and for the first time, he looks over at the frozen scene of his world ending - Sam, Irri, Rowena and her dæmon all caught in the flash of light, like some northern aurora showing through a rip in space. He looks away again quickly, his heart throbbing like a wound bleeding out. Sam's _face._

When he turns away again, Death tosses the branch at Dean, and Dean reflexively catches it.

It tingles in his hand, like it's done before. It doesn't do anything else, but it's obvious to Dean's hand that it's alive.

"She was right that it belongs to someone else, but it never occurred to her that she'd already let him in," Death says.

Dean waits for Death for explain. Death waits for Dean to figure it out.

"Wait, what?"

"It's yours. It answered to your hand the first time you touched it. You've been trying not to think about what that means, but now you know what it means."

The Hell he does! "I am not a - _witch!"_ It's the stupidest, most _absurd_ -

"You weren't born one. But when you were in Hell, you and Isabett were subjected to a specific torture that had this unintended effect. That was part of it. But more... recent developments in your life contributed too. - Witches have unique healing magic that is unmatched in this multiverse. I have stopped time here, Dean, to tell you this, because it will not save Sam for you to find it out later. You must do it immediately once time resumes flowing, while Irria is still bleeding Dust."

"But - do what - you said - it couldn't be undone. That it was forever." Dean doesn't understand. He doesn't have any idea what Death is trying to tell him. "That only god could put them back together - "

"Yes. That's what I said. So there must be… Something else you can do."

There's a sympathy in Death's face and voice now that is very, very frightening. The creeping feeling up Dean's back is intensifying. The fur on Bett's back is spiking up like an angry cat's.

 _It's like an operation that you need more than anything,_ Sam said. _A big one. Like a heart transplant._

"It may not work, Dean. The future isn't set until we reach it, even for me. But if anyone could do this… if I were a betting entity, I would bet on you. My hopes have no special power, but you have them, just the same."

Just like before, Bett gets it before Dean does. She makes a guttural noise of despair and flings herself at Dean's legs, inadvertently scratching. He drops the branch, startled, then reaches down to grab her just to make her stop, then she's in his arms, clutching at him, shuddering, crying.

"No," she's moaning, begging him, "please no, scared, can't, Dean, _please_ no," and she sounds so fucking childish it makes him angry, "Stop it, for fuck's sake," Death's pitying eyes, Bett whimpering and going to pieces as though he's going to -

Dean's eye falls to the knife in Rowena's frozen hand.

That's. Crazy. That can't be what Death means. That -

Who could _do_ that -

 _We'll do it ourselves as quick as we can, I got a knife right here,_ Dean had said.

He hadn't meant -

Killing yourself is murdering your dæmon, that's a no brainer, but even then you go together - wherever you go - there you both are -

But not for Sam, never again for Sam and Irri, but Bett -

"No, Dean please, please don't do that to me," she's sobbing against him, scratching at him feebly. "I love you, I don't want this, I'm so scared, please," till he could scream.

He's got her by the fur on the scruff of her neck. He shakes her. "Look at them!"

The pathetic, dimmed light that should have been Irri. The terrible blank look of surprise on Sam's face. "Can you live with this, _I can't live with this,_ Sam wouldn't want to live like that, you know what that means? That means we have to kill him, and her, _separately_ , I guess that's one for each of us, huh, and then we fucking kill ourselves, you want that? Huh? _That's_ what you want?"

"I'm - so - scared," she whispers, and Dean's heart melts and he hugs her close. "I know. I know, baby. I love you. Oh god, Bett, I love you. I don't wanna do this. You're the smart one, think up another way outta this and we won't have to."

She's quiet for a minute. Trembling. He is too. Death stands there, showing no impatience. Finally Bett says, "We can't live without them. We need them more than anything."

Even each other.

"Are you ready now?" Death asks politely, after a minute or two of quiet. Dean squeezes Bett tight, and tries to swallow the lump in his throat that feels like his heart. If they've really got any special powers, god, let them come out now. This is desperate and crazy. They are desperate.

And if they wait anymore, think about it anymore, they'll go crazy with fear. "If this doesn't work," he says to Death, "thanks for everything."

"Good luck," Death says. "Both of you."

He's not sure if by 'both' Death means Dean and Bett, or Dean and Sam. If it works, it'll be moot.

Can't think about it too much. Can't hold still to think. It's just got to get done. Like killing the vetala. Like going to Hell.

Dean takes the blade out of Rowena's hand, has to pry it out of her stiff, gripping fingers. It's a disgusting object, he wants to throw it away from himself, but he can't. Bett is shaking, in his arms, so hard that he would drop her if he weren't holding tight.

He knows Bett understands, that she has given consent. But it's still monstrous. It's a monstrous thing to do. At least Sam hadn't seen it coming. This is like having to cut off your own hand, or put out your own eye. Only it's so much worse than either of those.

He turns toward Sam, frozen in the chair. How he or anyone could ever for a moment have mistaken Sam with Irri hidden inside him for _this_ \- dæmonless - Dean can't really understand now. Even with time standing still, the difference is as obvious as night and day.

Dean can hardly breathe around this lump in his throat. He leans down, and releases Bett at last, into Sam's lap. She crouches there, trembling, and won't look him in the eye.

Or maybe it's the knife she won't look at. He can understand if it's that.

"Love you," he whispers to her. "Forever."

She doesn't reply.

Finally he turns back one more time to Rowena, and her other hand, clutched around the dim little light. He pries her fingers apart, not caring a whole lot if he breaks any, and gathers Irria in his hand.

She is frozen in time, unlike Bett. Dean can't feel anything from her - she is not his dæmon, and after what just happened to her, she's not anybody's dæmon. She's lost, orphaned. She hasn't even got a form. And there's a strange, sparkling vibration to her that he can feel through his skin. Death had said she was bleeding Dust. Maybe Dean can feel that now.

"Is there any spell?" he says to Death, and his voice sounds distorted to his own ears.

"No need," Death says. "You are inside the circle and still within the effects of the first spell. You need only - cut."

 _It's just a hand,_ thinks Dean. _It's just an eye. It's just your immortal dæmon._

It's just Sam, his Sam, more important than the entire world.

"All right," he says in that weird voice. It's the sound of him trying to talk around the lump in his throat, which will never go away now, he's certain. He'll live with it, or die with it, Dean knows, as he lifts up the knife. "We're as ready as we'll ever be. Go."

Bett makes a low, heartbreaking sound, just before. It almost makes Dean stop and pull back, but it's too late, too late, the blade slices down through the air between Dean and Bett, and the thing between them that has always been there, like a river, like a tree, like the gravity sticking him to the earth under his feet, is sliced apart in a hot sick bright bolt of pain that drives Dean down onto his knees. The knife clatters onto the floor and he curls up in agony, feeling his wits bleed out.

Bleed. Bleeding. Bleeding Dust. Irri. Irri.

Dean turns his head slowly, so slowly, toward his hand. There is light there, light he knows, light he's been looking for all this time. He gathers it close, closer, and now he can see the sparks, right in front of his eyes.

He closes his eyes, and he can still see the sparks through the darkness of his closed lids. His head dips forward, and he presses her against his lips, willing her to heal, to stop bleeding now, to accept him - dæmonless. To accept him even though he did what he did to Bett.

 _I love you,_ he tells her, unsure if she can even hear him. If she can't, what hope can there be for any of them?

He looks to see Sam, but he has forgotten about Rowena.

***

What happened? It was _working_ \- what has gone wrong _now?_

In the blink of an eye, she has gone from triumph to confusion and pain. Her hands! What has happened to her hands? Several of her fingers are broken, at least - both hands - she can't cradle one hand without hurting the other. And the gate! The gate she opened, she worked so hard to open it, it was open, she saw it right here, but it has gone out. It's gone. All that for nothing!

There is a horrible cry, right there beside her, and a flash of light that she can feel inside her teeth. By the time she turns to see it is done, the mad fool has cut his own dæmon away - to no purpose - to no gain - and the knife falls clattering to the floor.

"What is going on - What are you doing - One was enough, you daft - "

And then she catches sight of Him. The thin old man in black with shadow wings. Oh yes, Rowena knows who he is. But he's making a mistake. She thought this all through!

"What are _you_ doing here??"

"I've always been with you," Death says. "Every day of your life, every step on your road."

"What is that, a bloody metaphor?" she snaps. "If this is about that geas - it does not apply to me! That man was no child! Olivette had no right, she's none of my blood, and they'd even cast me out of their clan by then, none of her business at all - "

"Not that one," says Death.

That stops her short. What - what is he saying? Another geas - ?

"Also, it was not a metaphor."

Death's wings move. From behind him steps the pallid ghast of a child, a boy, small and thin, with no dæmon. His hollow gaze is fixed on her. There's the shadow of a bloody stain from his nose to his chin. She knows it. She remembers the blow that bloodied his nose. When he'd realized what she was going to do he would not stop _crying_. But he's not crying now.

"Fergus," Rowena says in a strangled voice. Cori flies up and starts flapping around chaotically. The stupid thing.

"This child, your only blood, cursed you. I was there," Death says. "You did not hear, or you did not choose to hear. Olivette shouted a curse after you when you left to come here, for harming your own child, but he is the one who laid the geas upon you, to never again sever the dæmon of an innocent person. You have done so. It has even been witnessed by a witch, according to the old rules."

"What?" She looks around again at the carnage, the two now-dæmonless idiots. One of them? It must be so. Witch women always have bird dæmons, but not always so the men. She never thought. But that hardly matters now. They can't do her any harm now.

This is Death she's got to deal with. She's got to get out of this. There is no way, no way this is the end of Rowena, she has a destiny, she has vengeance still to get. She swore to grind them all into ashes!

Ashes. Yes. Blood, yes. And the brush, just there on the table. Her mind is rolling fast, fast like it's rolling down hill. Think for your life, tanner's daughter! She can fight, she can flee, or she can flummox. She'll have time to try only one. Which way shall she bet? She'd thought she was having a lucky day.

This is Death. He's not a fanciful talker. He said he was with her every step. So she cannot flee. And she doubts she can flummox him with no preparation. But Rowena knows spells of _terrible_ power, one of which might even strike down a god. Or so the theory goes. It wants testing.

So it's fight, then.

She snatches up her brush from the table, only remembering her injured fingers in the moment she tries to clutch with them, and she hisses in pain. This will be hard. But Rowena grimly closes her fingers in a clawlike grip on her brush.

Damn - this dress - the sleeves - they're tight to her arms, all the way to her wrists - a sleek style, she can't push them _up_ , especially with broken fingers. She can't paint any symbols on her arms.

But that's all right, she doesn't need to, the dress may be tight but the neckline is nice and low, there's plenty of room -

But her diamonds. She'd forgot! Her lovely necklace from Tiffany's - wasn't so safe in that safe, now was it - it was meant to serve as a source of portable wealth in the other world - and a reminder to any she met of her status.

Now they're in her _way!_ And her fingers - she can't work the clasp. "Cori!" Why doesn't he understand? Why isn't he _helping_ her? He's flapping around like a mad stupid thing, what use is he to anyone?

"The clasp!" she hisses at him. "In the back! Hurry up! I need room - "

But the presence of Death - or maybe it's Fergus - or just so many dæmonless in the room has the shrike dæmon's wits completely scattered. He scratches uselessly at the back of her neck, drawing blood. But she can punish him later, if they get out of this. She paints a symbol, two, three. Even in these hasty, slipshod circumstances, this spell is a beauty of a beast, if she does say so herself. She hopes she will. A witch who can kill Death could surely become the Queen of Hell.

"Dean," she hears Death say, "if you would, please open the flap to the tent. Someone is outside. You'll need to invite them in."

The words scarcely make sense to her. She's trying to concentrate. Her fingers are getting swollen and she almost drops the brush twice painting the next character. There's room at the neckline for one more elemental glyph - but for any more, the beautiful diamonds have _got_ to come off. "Cori!!"

One of the dæmonless boys actually gets up, doing Death's bidding, shuffling like a zombie toward the tent flap. He's the one who did himself - what he thought he was doing she can't imagine. Doesn't matter now. Maybe Death can tell him to do this or that, but he won't be able to let anybody in that way. Maybe he _was_ a witch, but he's not anymore. Not without a dæmon. And whatever it is he's got cupped in his hand won't -

Ah! The clasp finally pops open under Cori's scrabbling claws. The heavy necklace, cold when she put it on, warm from her now sweating skin, sticks to her as it starts to drop, smearing two of the characters, and smudging her velvet dress as it falls the rest of the way to the floor.

She doesn't even curse him this time. She's got to concentrate. Out of the corner of her eye she can see that poor dæmonless bastard fumbling at the tent flap fastening. He can do that till the end of Time, but it won't do him any good. Someone ought to put him out of his misery.

She daubs more blood and ash onto her brush, hurry, there, she's managed to fix that rune, the other one should do, it's still legible - hurry - Hurry -

"Come in," she hears Dean say, and then a huge, angrily humming cloud of bees comes swarming into the tent like a runaway train.

Rowena shrieks, first in fury, then in terror. And Cori does the same.

She's not finished, but she drops the brush, she's got to protect her face, if she can't see she can't finish the spell - and she's got to finish the spell! She's got to get out of this! She can't bear to let those bitches win!

The bees don't even try to sting Rowena. But terror spikes in her heart - not her own, her dæmon's. She looks up incredulously from her shaking, swelling hands to see the swarm of bees swirling in relentless pursuit of her little bird, crashing down on him like an angry, buzzing wave.

Of course. Because of the bloody queen. He had to have her, for his collection.

_You said - I could! You said -_

What are they doing to him? They're not stinging. Why wouldn't they sting him to death? They're only - they're -

She's down on the ground, clutching uselessly at her throat, smearing all of the parts of her spell.

They're stifling him. Covering him all up in something sticky, hardening. Cori is dying. Rowena's going to die. She'll never even get to do her spell - never get out of this wretched world - never get home - never get revenge - Fergus still staring at her - that despicable little brat, never wanted him, never -

Knife. Dæmon cutting knife. It can save her. She can cut him loose - before - she can cut him loose. That Dean boy is - Still a witch - She can do it too. Cut Cori loose - burden to her - just one little cut and she can _breathe_.

She can't even grip the knife. Her whole world has shrunk down to this one little thing. _Save me. I'm caught. Save me!_ The last thing Rowena knows is touching it, trying to take it up, and failing, it's falling from her twisted fingers toward the floor, it's falling. Falling.


	14. Talk to me

Dean jerks back reflexively as the roaring swarm of bees comes tornadoing in. Also reflexively, he turns away, shielding Irri from harm.

Then Castiel steps into the tent, and Bobby and Theya right behind him. They're in time to see what happens. Dean hardly sees it, himself. The bees, now that he's invited them in, go for Rowena's bird dæmon. Of course. He's got to be the one who took their queen. Alive or dead, she must be in here somewhere.

There's no way to see what's happening in the center of that writhing knot of bees, but it can't be good for that dæmon. And it isn't. Rowena screams and writhes on the floor, trying to get to her filthy intercision knife, until there's an implosion of Dust at the center of the swarm, and the woman's body falls slack with her hand on the hilt.

Death gives Dean a little nod, and then he's gone, and the ghast child with him.

Cas is saying, "Dean - Sam - what have you done?" and Bobby can't even speak, he stands there gripping the hackled fur on his dæmon's back and looking back and forth between them.

Dean ignores them both. "Sam," he croaks, and pushes past Castiel to get to Sam.

Sam is hunched over Bett, rocking slightly in the chair. In Dean's hand, Irri feels cold and slow, the tingling almost vanished now.

"Sammy," touching Sam's shoulder, his hair, his shoulder again. "Sammy? C'mon, Sam. Talk to me. Please?"

Please be able to talk to me. Please be willing to talk to me.

"Dean…?" Sam lifts his head, groggy but alive, with at least some spark of self in there, thank god, thank the Almighty Authority, amen.

Sam looks down at Bett, who is hunched down with her face pressed against his belly. She looks like a fur coat folded up in Sam's lap.

Then he looks up at Dean. "I remember what happened," he says, slowly.

Another wave of relief. Not just because Sam remembers, but it's more evidence of his having all his marbles. Dean is not so sure he has all of his own anymore. Maybe they were all with Bett.

He tries to clamp down on the grief that threatens to unfold when he thinks about her too much. It's like a physical pain.

"Dean," Sam says. He's having a little trouble getting some words out, but they're all in the right order. "B-bett says you have to let yourself feel it, that - that Irri needs you to feel it. You can't shut things down now. She needs you."

Dean doesn't want to hear this, it goes against his instincts, that when others need you it's to be strong, loyal, to get things done but not embarrass everyone else with a lot of Feelings.

This dæmon, though, who was once his brother's, has a lot of Feelings.

Irri is moving more and more feebly. Dean takes a deep breath, closes his eyes, and thinks about Bett, lets himself fall into thinking about her like an ocean of grief and misery. Bett, oh god, Bett. His own Bett.

Irri feels it too. Irri loves her too. Irri feels about Bett the same way that Dean feels about Sam. She throbs with sorrow for Bett's pain as he clutches her against his chest.

_How could I do that to her. She begged me not to. She told me she was scared. I'm a fucking monster, this is like fucking Frankenstein here._

He thinks about the sound she made just before the knife came down, and sobs into his hand, trying to muffle the noise.

_Stop that. Stop stifling it. It hurts, Dean. Cry._

How can this help anything? How is this anything but weakness?

But he can't stop now he's started, and she doesn't need to prod him anymore. He curls up around Irri and sobs his heart out. He can vaguely hear somebody talking, and somebody else talking, and humming, and then quiet. They've left him alone. Good. Good. He deserves to be alone!

Oh - _Bett._

Thinking about her is an empty thing, a grating squeal of feedback. The places where she was, she's not there anymore. She's not his anymore. Dean cut her away.

He did it, he doesn't deserve to grieve, but he can't help grieving. He can't stop now he's let himself start. It goes on and on, pounding like the ocean, battering at the poor dumb rocks on the shore that can't get out of the way.

He has cried until everything inside him hurts when he feels - Something new.

She hurts, too. Irri hurts in the same way and at the same frequency, like a musical note. She is tuned to his sadness. They're still there, sharing it. But they're sharing it. They're - harmonizing. Joining.

It hurts, and he is still crying, but it's a different kind of hurt now. This is his dæmon now. Irria. She is his new heart, beating.

That's a metaphor. She can't mirror his pulse yet, until she settles to a form. And that, she'll need to do now. There's no question of her trying out many forms, they aren't kids, and she is weakened by trauma, him too probably, and their connection is so new and fragile.

 _What do you want to be?_ he asks her. They're sitting on the floor, as far away as possible from Rowena's body. He remembers how in childhood, Irri had liked to fly. It was Dad who hadn't liked that, thought birds were unmanly for some stupid reason, and discouraged it all the time. _You get to choose, for once. Anything you want._

 _Anything?_ she asks, then before he can answer she adds slyly, _Snow leopard…?_

He cringes, imagining it. _I'm gonna have to get used to being ragged on by you, but please don't get us ragged on by the whole world._ Still, he did say 'anything.'

 _I could try to be what I was,_ she muses, then hesitates. He can feel her hesitating. _I don't think I can be quite as big as I was. So no snow leopard after all. But I could be another wolverine. If you want me to, I can be._ For the first time, she shows him a picture: a memory from that day, when Dean came home from his first hunting trip with Dad, and two wolverines played together. She had enjoyed that.

 _No. It doesn't... feel right._ And he wouldn't have wanted her to take her old form either. Or, a smaller version of it. - From what Irri's saying, it sounds like she must have lost potential mass when she bled out all that Dust.

 _I agree,_ she says.

_You want to be a bird?_

She thinks it over carefully. He thinks she might be imagining it. Flying above the car. Perching on his shoulder.

 _I don't need to fly,_ she decides. _But I do want to be pretty._

It's funny. He wasn't expecting that at all, but it's not surprising. She's vain.

_You'll be pretty no matter what. I hope you're not expecting me to get all vain about my hair or any of that crap._

_No need,_ she says. _All right, here goes._

It's not a quick change. She has to struggle. Dean is sure that being hidden (or _hiding?_ Rowena said that, was that true?) for so long without a physical form must be making it harder, but a grown-up person's dæmon can't stay unsettled. He has no idea if it helps her at all, but he tries to mentally lend her strength. Dean can't think any more specifically than that, since he doesn't know what she's going to be. Except pretty.

When Irri finally starts to take form, Dean actually thinks for one split second that she's chosen to be a snow leopard after all. He's already preparing himself to deal with a lifetime of Dr. Sexy jokes when he realizes, not only is she much smaller than a leopard, she's more like a little silver tiger, with a fluffy ruff around her neck, and green eyes.

Little for a tiger, that is. _Huge_ for a cat. She must be one of those Maine coon cats. The new Irri is smaller than she was as a dog, but she's still bigger than Bett. And she's more than pretty, she's spectacular. She's like a movie star's dæmon.

"Hey you," Dean says, and unexpectedly there are tears in his eyes again. "You look nice."

He half expects her to protest at such paltry praise, but she looks pleased, pushing her whiskers forward. "Thank you." Her voice is the same as he remembers, low and soft.

Well, of course, she knows the praise wasn't as paltry as it sounded. She is part of him, now. She's responding to what he said, _and_ to what he thought. The way Bett used to.

He tries to clamp down on grief again, to shove it aside, but Irri won't let him. _That's_ not like Bett used to do at all.

Irri is climbing into his lap now, and she really is a lapful. If she were a real cat Dean would be sneezing his head off by now, but as it is, her fur is so, so soft, soft as a dream of kindness. He hugs her in close, lays his tearstained face against that gentle fur. There's her heartbeat, in synchrony with his own.

_You and Bett saved me. You had to do the bravest, hardest thing in the world, but you did it, you saved me. And Sam. We -_

Here he feels her break off in confusion, because what 'we' means has changed now.

 _\- Sam and me,_ she amends, _that 'we' didn't even know what was happening, but_ you _had to. If what you did was monstrous like you say, all I know is that you did it for love, you saved us all, and you're my hero, Dean._

"Aw, come on," he mutters against her fur. He's blushing.

In response, she produces a lawnmower purr.

***

"She needs you," Sam tells Dean. Dean doesn't want to listen, but Sam knows he's got no choice. Dean turns away, hunched over what was once Sam's dæmon.

Sam gets up from the chair and finds his balance badly affected, making him sway as though he's drunk, or as though something is wrong with his inner ears.

It would help if he could put Bett down, but the very idea of it makes her cling to him even harder. Their joining was fast - much faster than it looks to be for Dean and Irri - but painful; shockingly, almost psychedelically painful. A kaleidoscope of torn connections, raw but instinctively groping for contact.

They are compatible. They know one another, so very well. But they aren't the same. And there's a defensiveness to Bett that Sam isn't used to, not from the inside.

Some of it may well be shock. And some of it, too, may be that Sam has been months without being able to even feel his dæmon except fleetingly, during the most intimate circumstances. His memory of how Irri had felt and sounded and moved has all blurred together with nostalgia.

Sam let that happen to Irri, let that witch do that to Irri, when he had felt there was something wrong, when inside him she was trying to pull them back. Just like with Lucifer. - He'd finally _felt_ her for that awful moment, that last moment, as the knife severed them forever. Her fear, her misery. No hope of goodbye.

Bobby is staring at Dean, but he feels Sam's gaze and looks up. He looks scared. Sam doesn't suppose he can blame Bobby for that, but it still hurts.

"I'm - all right," Sam says, his voice a hoarse scrape. "I'm sort of all right. Got - vertigo." He clutches for the chair back with his free hand.

"This isn't easy, you know," Bett snaps at Bobby. Bobby blinks, but for some reason, her ill temper reassures him just a little. Theya's hackles go down, too.

"We should let them alone," Sam says, and he'd also like to get out of this tent, which he no longer admires even in the abstract. "They need space." Dean would hate for them all to stand around watching him cry any more than they already have.

Castiel is standing a little way apart, and the swarm of bees, having finished their business with Rowena, are surrounding him in a loose cloud. The look on his face is as serious as ever, but his head tilting this way and that is comical to Sam, or is that Bett?

He turns to Sam. "Their queen is here," Cas says. "They say she is alive, but hurt. Up there." He looks up at the place where a phalanx of the main body of bees has streamed up to point. "She can't fly. They ask that either you or Dean bring her back to their servants."

Servants. Do they mean the druids, Sam wonders?

"Why us? Can't you - I don't know, fly up there and bring her down? or even fly her to her 'servants'?"

"They will speak to me because I understand them, but they say you and Dean have the smell of the hive. I'm not sure why."

"I know why," says Bett, in a voice like a rude child.

Instead of being annoyed, as Bett clearly intends, Sam finds himself snickering. Like a twelve-year-old. Thank god Cas doesn't understand, though Bobby is starting to look a little suspicious. Sam clears his throat.

Sam's eye falls to the branch lying there on the floor, cast aside and forgotten. The cloud pine. Which apparently belongs to someone… But he can worry about that later. He picks it up.

There's a funny little tingle in the palm of his hand, but then it's gone. Sam frowns, but there are more immediate concerns.

"Could she climb onto this, if I hold it up?" he asks Castiel, who asks the bees, who ask the queen. The answer is yes. Sam holds the branch up to reach a shelf in the semi-darkness, and when he gets the word from Cas, he slowly, gently brings it back down. His vertigo is gone, he realizes. When did that happen? But it's a relief.

The queen is bigger than the others, but not by very much, and her 'servants' have not dared to mark her with a spot of paint, the way Sam has read some mundane beekeepers do.

Her wings are ruined, he is sorry to see. She'll never fly anymore. But she can still be queen just the same, and Sam is glad she made it. Rowena's dæmon was a twisted creature. It makes him shudder. This whole tent makes him shudder. He's glad to get out of it.

He looks over at Dean, still hunched over and shaking. It hurts to see him hurting. But he knows Bett is right, that Dean has to do this. And Sam knows _he's_ right, that Dean should be left alone. So he nods to Castiel.

"Okay, please tell her to hold on tight, and tell the others we're going now."

They leave Rowena's green tent, and it's the same damp grey sky as it was when they went in, but the light - and everything - look different to Sam's eyes. Bett still clings to him, held with one arm, and in his other hand he carries the queen of the fairy bees on a cloud pine branch.

Everybody stares, of course, at the swarm of bees escorting him. Bobby and Theya follow behind, slowly, with Castiel. Sam feels calm, and projects calm, walking carefully over the muddy ground. The queen bee sits calmly on the branch as though this happens all the time. It feels a little like a parade.

They're coming around on the other side from where the druids have their booth, so they don't see any of this coming. But they must be able to hear the humming. As Sam turns the corner, he sees the two women, their eyes huge and their mouths open in amazement. Everything on their table is in disarray - when the bees left on their mission, it must have been violent.

Sam stops in front of the druids and clears his throat.

He intends, he absolutely intends to say something sensible about the hive, but instead he opens his mouth and says, "Uh. Long live the queen?" and grins at them. Like a complete idiot.

They stare at him. Sam blushes. That - was _stupid_. That was like a dumb Dean joke on Dean's dumbest day.

Bett, the only one to find it funny, is quivering against his side in silent amusement.

Then, bless him, Castiel steps in and draws attention off of Sam by saying, "Your queen was taken by Rowena's dæmon. She's been injured," and Sam takes that as a cue to hand the branch with the queen on it to the woman with the cat (he never does learn their names.) She murmurs her thanks, but her eyes are already on the precious queen and her poor mangled wings.

"What about Rowena?" asks the woman with the rooster, sharply.

"Your bees mummified her dæmon in propolis," Cas says. "In fulfillment of a geas on Rowena."

"What…?"

"Ahh," says the woman with the cat. "Well." She's doing something with her hands that Sam can't quite see, but the bees are all streaming toward her now, reforming their air hive, with the queen in the center. She hands the branch  back to Sam and turns to her partner. "Looks like we're done at this Market. Once that gets around, they'll be calling our bees _'killer_ fairy bees'. D'you suppose anybody would still want the honey then? Anybody you'd want to sell it to, I mean?"

"But… her dæmon - That's not our fault! That's not our bees' fault either! They were totally provoked - That nasty, psycho little - "

"We will dispose of her tent," says Cas, "and all of its contents."

That puts a stop to the discussion. They turn to stare at him, frowning.

"She has done great harm to many people. Including my friends. She most certainly brought her own fate on herself, many times over. The hive is back where it wants to be. They are fond of your singing," he tells the woman with the rooster. She looks startled, then embarrassed. The other woman is looking at her with interest. But she turns to Sam.

"Thank you so much. Thank you. It was bad enough when she went missing, but then they all just - swarmed, we thought we'd lost everything. However you did this, we're so, so grateful."

She slips him a jar of royal jelly. Quite a big jar. He doesn't protest. He mumbles thanks, and nods, and stuffs it into his jacket pocket.

She nods too, but then she hesitates before turning back to her hive. Her grey cat is on the table behind her, staring intently at Bett.

"Sorry, I don't mean to be rude. But I thought your" (Sam sees her eyes flick over his shoulder to take in Bobby, an older white male, listening, and she chooses her next word accordingly,) "friend had the wolverine dæmon."

Sam thinks, He did, and he thinks, It's a long story, and he thinks, He's not my friend, he's my other half. But out loud he says, cheerfully, as though it's no big deal, "No, she's mine."


	15. I wasn't sleeping

Dean takes a deep breath, and then another one, and another one. Then he gets up off his knees, with Irri in his arms.

They're alone in the tent, except for the dead body of Rowena. And a sticky mass that is what's left of her dæmon. Some kind of - bee glue. Maybe there's a perfect impression of the little bird inside, from just before it imploded. Or maybe it just caved in.

Dean feels sick.

He turns and stumbles out of the tent, clutching Irri against him, and stops short just outside.

Does the world look… weird? Is it just him? Are his eyes different? Dean shuts his eyes, shakes his head, though he knows that will make no difference. But he can't help it, can't help going through the motions. He opens them again. Weirdness persists. And it's nothing he can even name, nothing he can put his finger on. It's - everything.

"It's okay," Irri says softly. "You'll adapt."

She enjoys speaking aloud now, because she hasn't for so long. But Dean also likes subvocalizing.

_Is it weird for you too?_

A hesitation, then: _Yes._

Weirdly, Dean finds that comforting. _Then_ we'll _adapt._

She tilts her whiskers forward and squinches up her eyes. Cat body language is a third way of talking, she's showing him.

"Dean!"

"Here they come," Irri whispers, and she's a little tense now, the tip of her long feathery tail twitching. Is she scared? Does she think anyone will try to hurt her again?

_I'm worried that Bett might not accept me. She's stubborn. She'll have wanted the old me back, don't you think?_

That does sound like Bett. Except.

_Don't forget her time travel show. She loves it when the science guy's dæmon changes every week. So I think you might be okay._

Sam is walking toward him, holding Bett, and that branch, and Bobby and Cas are behind him. All eyes are fixed on Irri in Dean's arms.

Despite the weirdness and tension of the moment, he can feel her luxuriating in their attention. But his eyes are on Bett, watchful and silent.

It hurts to see her, but it's a joy to see her. There she is, right there, not gone. Safe, with Sam. Keeping Sam safe. But Dean knows: he can't touch her. The old taboo is back in place - the instinct that it would be a gross violation. That's - So sad.

"Dean," says Sam, "are you okay?"

Dean opens his mouth, but never really answers this. He's all choked up again, in front of _everybody_ for crying out loud. But Sam is peering down at him anxiously, and Dean gives a nod and a shrug.

"We're getting there," says Irri, bailing him out. At the sound of her voice, Bett seems to relax, lounging in the curve of Sam's strong arm.

Bobby clears his throat. "I have never seen… or heard of… Anything like this. Ever." He sounds amazed, humbled even, not upset. Theya beside him looks calm and unruffled.

"I haven't either," says Cas, and they all know that that's saying something. Dean feels exposed, like he wants to protect Irri from their curiosity, while at the same time she loves having them look at her. "But they are whole people. This isn't some spell. This is… a unique conjunction of variables. Not some extraordinary coincidence. Death himself was personally involved."

"I wonder," Bobby muses. "Those tattoos, against hellion possession? There's Dust in them, isn't there? And I remember John told me, all four of them were inked by the same artist, same day, just after Sam and - and Irri settled. Same batch of Dust in the ink, must have been. Maybe that's one of those variables." He and Theya have tattoos too, of course. Theirs are much more recent. Dean remembers, Theya had resisted, but then they had been possessed. Once. Briefly. That was enough for resistance.

"Do we all have to stand around talking us to death?" Sam startles everybody by snapping. "We need to deal with this tent, don't we? And get the hell out of here."

Even he looks startled, hearing himself. But Dean is glad when he doesn't apologize for it, because Sam's right. In fact, Castiel apologizes, and he deals with the tent himself, imploding it and all its contents (or so he tells them. To Dean it just seems to disappear.)

Bobby says, "You… Need me for anything? Is there anything I can do? I don't even have to say my house is always open to you, do I?"

Dean glances at Sam, then says, "I think… we need to… take things slow for a little while. Figure out the, uh, new normal, you know? But, but thanks, Bobby. We'll be there. In a little while."

"Well," says Bobby, taking off his hat to resettle it before putting it on again, "Cas brought us here, so I guess we'll catch a ride back with him." Theya looks glum now. Dean doesn't blame her for that. Flying by angel is fast, but incredibly uncomfortable and disorienting, and for all Bobby's bluster, Theya is a dignified dæmon.

"I'm glad you're all right," Cas startles Dean out of his thoughts by telling him. "And you, Irria."

"Thanks for everything," she tells him.

"Yeah, Cas," Dean says, "thanks."

And then Sam - of all people, _Sam_ \- rudely interrupts. "Yeah, seeya, Cas. Bye, Bobby. - Dean. Give me the keys. We're leaving now."

What the hell?

 _Jealous_ , says Irri.

What the actual hell? For real? After everything? _Of Cas??_

 _Of anybody who looks at you like that, I guess,_ she sends a sort of mental shrug.

Dean puts his hand into his jacket pocket, where his keys are, but he grips them tight instead of handing them over.

"See you later, fellas," Dean says to Cas and Bobby, and then starts walking to where they left the car (a million years ago, in the other lifetime), knowing Sam will follow. And Sam does follow.

Dean does let him drive, in the end, but only because he feels like it.

The two dæmons, released into the back seat of the car, do not snuggle. Dean assumed they would, but they don't seem comfortable. Not as remote from each other as the dæmons of strangers would be, but not like family, either. In fact, they're each keeping to their human half's side of the car in a way they never used to.

Dean sighs, and realizes too late that he's done so kind of loudly. Sam glances over at him, eyebrows raised. Dean shakes his head.

"Nothing," he mutters. "Just…" He spreads his hands. He doesn't know how to finish the sentence.

"You wanna drive now?" Sam asks when they stop for gas. It's getting into late afternoon now; Sam drove south, Dean doesn't know if he has a destination in mind or if they're just going away from Bobby's. The weather has cleared as they went, the sky opening up to let a little sunlight through.

"Not really," Dean says.

"Could stop to eat soon," says Sam. "I'm starving. And hey. We can just go out, now."

Dean isn't all that hungry, and he's not sure he wants to be around other people all that much, but Sam sounds eager and, and Sam should eat. "Yeah, anytime you want. I could drive after."

Sam nods, and they don't say any more for a while. Then Sam spots a billboard for a steakhouse, and enthusiastically takes that exit. When they get out of the car, the dæmons go with them on foot, as normal.

The restaurant is big, and there are a lot of people inside it, but the booths are tall and once they're sitting down, they hardly see anybody except the server and her dæmon. But oh boy, does she see _them_.

Her dæmon is some kind of ferret or weasel, reminding Dean obliquely of Lisa and Galian, though neither the ferret nor the human really resemble them that much. When she shows up for the drinks order, her eyes light up and she looks back and forth between him and Sam, biting her lip like 'ooh I can't decide.' And then she gasps when she looks at Irri.

"Ooooh, she's so _beautiful_. And her _eyes…_!"

Dean supposes he should probably get used to hearing that. "Uh. Thanks." He glances at Irri, expecting her to be enjoying this, but Irri isn't looking at the server or at Dean, but across the table. He follows her gaze.

No one is going to call Bett beautiful right now (even though she is, of course she is.) Her teeth are showing and her eyes look a little crazy. Startled, he looks to Sam, and finds Sam looking at the server with unveiled contempt.

And he was the one who wanted to go out, too.

"Uh," the woman says, uncertainly. She glances to Dean as though Dean can reassure her. But he probably looks about as startled as she does.

"Maybe you could take our order now," Sam says, evenly. He's keeping the contempt out of his voice, but his eyes are pretty damn cold.

"Please," says Dean, trying but failing to recover normality. She looks a little scared now as she nods, but she gets their whole order before making her escape. Dean is pretty sure somebody else is going to be bringing that stuff.

"Can you lighten up with that?" he asks Sam, once she's safely gone. "You really think you've got _anything_ to worry about? From _anybody?_ Are you fucking _kidding_ me?"

Sam doesn't answer this. Bett hunkers down in the booth so that Dean can hardly see her from this side.

Sure enough, somebody else seems to have taken over their table service, but that's fine with Dean. This server's another woman, but she's brisk and no nonsense and when she brings their drinks, doesn't linger to gawk at Irri's eyes. Or Bett's teeth. Or maybe just the fur of her back.

Dean reaches eagerly for his beer and after the first swallow, stops short, frowning in confusion. It tastes. Weird. In some indefinable way. He doesn't like it the same way. He might have thought it was just something gone off, if it was a draft, but this is a bottle, the brand familiar. Dean grimaces and sets it down.

Sam doesn't seem to be having the same problem. He drinks deeply and sighs. Bett perks up a little, enough to be seen, and leans against Sam's thigh.

Dean feels a physical ache knife through him, because he remembers what it felt like, exactly how it felt, when she leaned against him like that. But that's over. - Then he glances, guiltily, at Irri, here by his side. He is lucky. He should be grateful - he is grateful. But.

Irri turns to look at him, squinches her eyes shut at him. _I know._

Dean looks back at Sam, to find Sam looking at Irri now. He must have noticed their silent communication. How does he feel about that, Dean wonders? Is he jealous of her, too? Or about her?

Then Sam looks over at Dean. And he's Sam again, acting like Sam again. He even looks embarrassed.

"I didn't mean to," he says. "I'm sorry. It was like there was no filter at all, I just - reacted. She looked like. I don't know. Like she wanted to reach out and _touch_ both of you right here, and the thought of it made me - Angry."

"It's okay," says Dean. He tries again with his beer, but it still tastes weird. He grimaces at it. "Everything's weird. Everything changed today." Was it only today? And here they are still walking and talking and moving around.

"Yeah," says Sam, and drinks the rest of his beer in one go. He pushes the empty toward the edge of the table and looks toward the bottle Dean has pushed aside. "Mind if I finish that?"

"Go ahead," Dean nods. "Doesn't taste right."

"It doesn't…?" Sam takes a swallow, but shakes his head. "Seems fine to me," and drinks some more.

And it's not just beer, it turns out. It's food, too. They both ordered steak and baked potatoes, but while Sam devours his plateful with obvious enjoyment, Dean can hardly swallow any of his. Flavors are weird, but textures are worse. The steak is objectively gorgeous, perfectly cooked to order, but the _feel_ of the meat between his teeth makes him shudder. He picks at the potato for a while before giving up.

"Are you feeling okay?" Sam asks, once he finally surfaces from his feeding frenzy, and sees how much is still on Dean's plate.

Dean shrugs. Irri says, "He's having sensory problems."

"Oh!" says Sam, nodding. "Like the beer? That makes sense."

It does?

"Maybe some dessert…?" Sam suggests. "Get some sugar in you at least? Maybe they've got pie."

Dean tries to imagine the various textures of _pie_ in his mouth, and shudders again.

"No. Thanks."

"We all need sleep," says Irri. "It will help."

Bett pokes her head up on the other side and glares at Irri. "You're one to talk, you're an expert. You were sleeping for months!" Inside Sam, she means.

"I wasn't sleeping," says Irri. She's not so calm now.

She wasn't?

It's not like Dean has had a chance to ask her about this, but he had wondered.

Bett starts to reply, but stops short when Sam puts a hand on her back.

"Let's pay up and get out of here," he says to Dean. "Get a place to sleep. I saw something off the service road."

At the motel, Sam goes to get their room, another reversal of the previous routine. Dean leans back in his seat with a sigh, and Irri effortlessly jumps over from the back seat to lean against him.

"Bett's angry," says Dean.

"Bett's been angry since the fire," says Irri. "It's part of who she is."

Since the fire, when Mom died. Yes, Irri was there too, of course.

"But I know what you mean. Angry now. She's angry with me, because of what the witch said. I assume it goes something like, if I hadn't been _hiding_ , none of the rest of it would have had to happen."

"She's angry with me for what I did," Dean says flatly. He remembers the cold knife in his hand, the hot sick pain when he used it. He's glad he hardly ate anything now. He'd be puking it up in the parking lot in a minute if he had.

"Stop," Irri whispers, her front paws on his leg, her whiskers brushing his cheek. "Leave that thought alone for now. Please? It hurts."

 _She said Please too_ \- Dean thinks, then clamps down on it. She's right. That's the last thing he needs to dwell on right now. Their connection is still fragile. He's threatening it. _I'm sorry._

 _It's all right. I meant it about sleep. You need to rest and to dream. It will help - us._ The new 'us.' She doesn't elaborate further but Dean hopes his 'sensory problems' might only be temporary.

There's no way of knowing but finding out, of course. No one has ever done this before. 'Dæmon transplant' is a phrase so absurd it ought to be the name of a punk band. And they thought their lives were weird before!

Sam and Bett are coming back out of the office now. It's already weirdly like a dream, to see them together like this. It's not at all the same as when Sam was with her or touching her - Before. When she was Dean's.

Irri bumps the top of her head against Dean's chin. Her silvery fur is so soft, even the shorter fur that isn't all feathery. Dean strokes her ears carefully - he has no practice with petting cats, of course - and then down her back. Then Sam is there and Dean rolls the window down.

"Fifteen," Sam says, flipping him his key. "Down there. We'll just walk down."

'We' means, 'me and Bett.'

Irri bumps him again. He almost bites his tongue. "Okay," Dean says, blankly. "Right," waking up to the fact that he's behind the wheel now, he drove here from the restaurant, and he needs to move the car down nearer to their room.

He manages to do this, but he's so tired by the time he reaches the room door that he can't seem to get the key in right. After a half a minute of this, Sam opens the door, frowning.

"You look like crap," he says. "Get in here."

"You wouldn't think those two phrases would go together," Dean mumbles, then notices the two queen beds. Well. Yeah. Sleep. He'd just -

"You sit here. Please - don't - let him move. All right?" With a pang, Dean realizes that Sam was addressing the last part of that to Irri. He doesn't hear her reply. After a minute of fuzziness, Sam is back, there's a sharp cracking sound like he's opening a beer. "Here."

Beer tastes bad now, he remembers that. "I don't want - "

"Drink it, Dean." Sam's voice is stern, and the fizzy smell under Dean's nose isn't the sharp sourness of beer. It's sweet. It's a Coke, very cold. From a vending machine. He sips, steeling himself for it to taste bitter or spoiled, but it doesn't. It's just cold, fizzy, incredibly sweet. And it's the first thing that's tasted good since - the change. Since they changed. Dean doesn't know how to refer to it, even in his own head.

Maybe he'll find a way to think about it if he ever stops flinching. But Irri asked him not to right now, and he wants to do what's right for her if he can.

He drinks the Coke, and as the sugar flows into him, it's the best thing Dean's ever had to drink in his life, that he can remember. Well. Second best. First was the bottle of water he'd guzzled in that gas station after he crawled out of the ground. Right after that, this.

"Good," Sam says, when he takes the empty can back. "You look better. Want me to get you another one?"

Dean shakes his head slowly. "No thanks. Gonna shower quick. Then pass out." It can't be later than what, seven, eight o'clock. But today has been much too long already.

He just drops his clothes in a pile, goes into the bathroom and turns the water on. Irri follows him into the room. Dean would think the distance is nothing, but line of sight is comforting to them both. He showers as quickly as he can. When he comes out, Sam has put his toothbrush and floss and stuff on the vanity, and it doesn't matter how tired Dean is, he pretty much drank a Coke for dinner, he's cleaning his teeth.

All minty now, Dean comes out in his towel, because he didn't bring any clothes in with him. Irri is by his side, and Sam, sitting on his bed with his laptop open, looks up and stares.

It's not until this exact moment that Dean realizes: they have not touched each other, at all, since everything happened. The last time he touched Sam was on his shoulder, before Dean and Irri connected, before she settled. Now that she's settled, everything feels different.

And he's - self-conscious in front of Sam. Sam is looking at him, but Dean feels awkward, even embarrassed by it. He's in pieces - he doesn't want to be looked at. Sam can't possibly expect - _now_ -

Irri jumps up on the bed, effortlessly diverting Sam's gaze off of Dean so that  Dean can move. As he does, he wonders where Bett is.

 _On the floor between Sam's bed and the wall,_ Irri tells him.

Hmm.

Sam brought Dean's bag in from the car, that's where the toothbrush and stuff came from. But rummaging in it for clothes to sleep in is too much trouble, and seems like it would be making some kind of statement. Dean hangs his towel over the back of a chair and gets into his bed.

It kind of feels like the whole world shifts on its axis with him, as he goes horizontal. Dean thinks about what having a fever feels like. This isn't all that different. He's hot and cold like that, too.

Sam tries to tell him something, or ask him something, but Dean groans and curls up into a ball, hugging a pillow over his head.

Irri is with him, leaning against him through the blankets. Her presence is reassuring, and they need to be close, he's sure, so this connection between them can sink in, get stronger. But Dean can't get comfortable. If he needs sleep, he isn't sure he can even get it like this.

He _must_ sleep, though, at least for a little while, because time jumps forward:  suddenly the room is dark, and Dean can hear Sam breathing evenly in the other bed.

"Dean?" Whispered in the dark, from close by.

It's Bett.

Waited till Sam was sleeping? That means she doesn't want Sam to hear. Dean goes tense, and at his back he can feel Irri tense too.

"Leave us alone," Irri says.

"Don't say 'us' to _me_. I'm talking to _Dean_."

"What is it, Bett," Dean whispers, wishing they'd keep their voices down. They'll wake up Sam.

"I should have known you loved Sam more than me," she whispers, and it's like punching him in the gut. "You hated me for not doing what that man wanted."

She always meant Dad when she said 'that man.' She's talking about the wolf thing.

"No," still trying hard to whisper, but it's a loud whisper now. "No, Bett. I was proud of you."

Like she doesn't even hear him, she moves closer and hisses, "Why didn't I get to change? You cut me and I didn't get to change."

Irri says, sharply, "I said leave us alone!"

Nobody's whispering anymore, and yet Sam sleeps on.

Bett sneers, "Make me," and that's absurd, that's fucking crazy, they wouldn't fight like this, they never fight like this, he didn't know Bett actually wanted to change - Irri growls like a panther and launches herself through the dark at the other dæmon. Horrible screaming like the screaming in Hell - pain like the pain in Hell - they're _killing each other_ and there's nothing Dean can do to stop it - Sam shouting - tearing - disruption -

"DEAN," Sam is shaking him, shaking him hard. "Stop it! You're dreaming, it's a dream, wake up!"

Dean gasps, his eyes wide open now, and stares at Sam. The light in the room is on.

"Okay," Dean gasps. "Okay. I'm, I'm, fuck I hope I'm awake - " He looks for Irri, close by, and for Bett, across the room. She does not look like she's just been tearing out his heart. She looks scared.

Someone is pounding on the door. Apparently, Dean was screaming. Sam does some explaining. Sounds like he's implying Dean is a war veteran. PTSD. Bad dreams.

Irri crawls very carefully into Dean's blanket-covered lap. He puts his arm around her, and finds that she's shaking. It can't be seen, but he can feel it: an ongoing vibration that is definitely not a purr. "I'm sorry," he whispers. "Are you okay?"

She just presses against his chest instead of answering. Dean guesses that's a 'No'.

Sam closes the door and turns toward Dean. He's not bothering to try to hide the worry on his face at all. He can still do Feelings, then, Dean thinks, inconsequentially. That's a relief.

Dean's expecting questions, but Sam says, "You scared me. Us. You were screaming - 'they're killing each other.'"

"It was a dream. It was just a dream," is all Dean can seem to say.

"I'm scared," says Irri.

This is one of those record-scratch moments. Dean and Sam both stare at her.

"Just a dream?" she says. Her pupils are enlarged and her ears laid back on her head. "You almost - I almost couldn't - Oh, let go of me," and she steps free of Dean's loosened arm to pace on the bedspread. "We have a problem," Irri says. "We _need_ sleep, and dreaming, but dreams like that will break us, I mean it. This 'us'. We'll die in his sleep if we can't deepen this connection."

He was only asleep for a moment. He hadn't even realized.

"I can't control what I dream about."

"You did once," says Bett, speaking up for the first time.

It's also the first time she's talked to him directly - not counting the horrible dream, of course. He's so surprised that it takes him a moment to figure out what she means. Oh! When he dreamed that he was Bett. She'd pretended at the time that she knew nothing about it.

"Oh - That - I mean it wasn't like I was in control of that either. I mean, I couldn't get out of it till I woke up. Besides - that was, that was a royal jelly thing, and we haven't got any more."

"Actually, yes, we do," says Sam.

Dean stares aghast at the enormous jar Sam rummages up. "What the hell?" That's practically a lifetime supply.

"When I brought their queen bee back, the druids gave it to me as a thank you."

Dean remembers bees all right, but he only has a hazy memory of hearing Cas talk about the queen. He was pretty distracted at the time. Irri leans into him, less shaky now.

 _That might help us,_ she tells him, privately.

Dean sighs. He's tired. "I guess it probably can't hurt."

So then there's the awkward question of how exactly to administer the stuff. Dean is trying to think of how to suggest he go apply it in private without hurting Sam's feelings when Sam reveals that royal jelly is safe to _eat_.

Oh!

Not like Dean's all that keen on eating, either, right now, but that does seem simpler. And more to the point, when he wants it at the brain end anyway.

Sam makes him drink another Coke first, so Dean takes some of the jelly with that. Just a little. And guzzles down the rest of the soda to wash down the weird taste. Well, he's got to brush his teeth again.

He's a little wobbly, but he waves off Sam's help to use the bathroom. He'd have to be more fucked up than this to need help standing up to pee. He washes his hands, and brushes his teeth, and while he's doing this Sam comes in.

Dean can't talk with his mouth full of brush and paste. Sam meets his eyes in the mirror and says, "Bett says, Death told you you're a witch. Because of what Alastair did."

Urk. Well. It is true. Death did say that. Dean nods reluctantly, then shrugs. Finally he spits out the toothpaste and says, "Probably not anymore." He rinses his mouth out. "Maybe that's you now."

"That branch felt a little weird in my hand," Sam admits, "but only for a minute."

Dean nods, abstractedly, as he straightens up from the sink. He's even more wobbly now. He blunders into Sam. Sam holds him up.

"Okay, De, let's get you back to bed."

Dean is slowly nodding to this even as he's lying down. Sam is helping him, his hand on the back of Dean's head preventing Dean from bonking it against the headboard, getting the pillow into place. Dean opens his mouth to protest this babying but all that comes out is a wavering sigh.

Well, maybe he is a baby, kind of. Irri settles against his side, and all Dean knows is, there aren't going to be any nightmares. He puts his arm around her. She's too big for teddy-bear cuddling, and Bett hated that anyway. Her size is a comfort somehow. And oh, how soft that fur is under his hand.

 _I always wanted to be able to touch you,_ he thinks, as he slips under.

He has a dream that they're on a case. And there's some stuff in it that ought to count as full on nightmare material, but it doesn't feel like one to Dean as it unfolds. There are aliens who turn out to be fairies - nothing to do with the fairy bees, though later he figures they must have been in his subconscious there for obvious reasons - Dean is abducted by the aliens, and Sam thinks it's funny somehow. And Dean gets arrested. And gets beaten up a lot. But it turns out all right in the end.

It hardly feels like rest, come to think of it. More like working a case all night. But the point wasn't any kind of a dream quest, of course. The point was REM sleep. And they definitely got that. When Dean wakes up, it's later than usual in the morning for him, maybe ten o'clock. Irri is sprawled out beside him, stretching.

Sam is on the other bed. He's obviously gotten up, showered and shaved and dressed, but he's fallen asleep again, lying on top of the covers of the other bed. Bett is beside Sam, fitting herself along his side for as much contact as possible.

Dean sits up, rubbing his face. He looks to Irri. She's looking up at him, her big green eyes squinching in greeting. Unlike Bett, Irri wakes up sweet.

 _You're feeling better,_ she says to him. _Me too._

_Are we okay now?_

She doesn't answer right away. She's thinking. While she does, Dean looks over at Sam and Bett again.

Dean had longed so much to see his brother restored, in two parts again. And here he is, sleeping, apparently whole, only his dæmon is Bett now. Will always be Bett, now. Bett, his brother's dæmon.

 _We're getting there. Some of it will take time,_ says Irri. _We are healing, but adapting takes time._

That's true, Dean thinks. He strokes the silvery fur on her back.

On the other bed, Sam stirs. "Oh - hey," he yawns, sitting up. Bett curls up a little more, but Dean knows she's awake. "Dozed off there. How are you feeling?"

"Hungry," says Dean, realizing it's true as he says it. Hopefully his sensory whatnot got shaken out by that sleep, because whatever the food tastes like, he could just shovel it in right now.

Of course he showers first and shaves and all, but he gets it done in record time. Irri, sitting and watching from the closed toilet lid, sighs, "Please don't cut your face all up, Dean," in such a comfortingly mother-hen way that he stops for a second to give her his biggest, charmingest grin. "I never cut my face."

And even after bragging about it like that, he still doesn't. Awesome.

He gets dressed, and they go out to a diner. It's starting to fill up with lunch crowd, but it's the kind of place that does breakfast all day.

Unlike at the steakhouse, the booths are normal height and most of the other people and dæmons are visible. Dean can't help feeling a little exposed, still. Not to the people so much, but to the dæmons. _Can't they all see what's happened? Don't any of them know we aren't - normal?_

He's half expecting Irri to chide him for saying they aren't normal, but instead she asks,

_Can you tell just by looking when a human has had a heart transplant?_

Okay, no.

Sam seems to be enjoying this, being out among other people. He looks relaxed, he's glancing around with an interested face. Dean hopes they won't have any more googly-eyed waitress encounters, though.

The waitress, when she comes, is much older and nothing like Lisa, and though Dean's pretty sure she likes the look of Sam all right, at least there's no gushing over anybody's dæmons. She hands over the big laminated menus and goes to get them coffee.

"You look better already," Sam tells him.

"Well y'know, a shave'll do wonders for anybody," says Dean, turning the menu over to see what's on the other side. Nothing to do with food. He turns it over again. Does he want eggs, or pancakes? Is one a safer bet than the other? His stomach is green-lighting the whole menu.

"Dean," Sam says, loudly, and Dean looks up to see with a jolt that the waitress is back and she's giving him a heavy-lidded lizard stare that her koala dæmon is echoing perfectly.

"Sorry," and he orders eggs and bacon _and_ pancakes, because fuck it.

With the distraction of the menu gone, it's easier to stay focused on the present moment. Coffee helps, too.

"You look like you're doing all right," he says to Sam, glancing over to include Bett in the 'you'. "Are you?"

Sam opens his mouth, closes it again, looks to Bett. She blinks at him.

"We're getting there," says Sam.


	16. I miss us

The food shows up quickly. Sam is more in the mood for lunch food, since that's the predominant smell in the restaurant now, and has a sandwich with fries. It's good, but Sam hardly pays attention to it, in favor of watching Dean eat.

For one thing, Dean's interest in table manners has always been in inverse proportion to how hungry he is. And Sam listened to Dean's stomach growl all the way here in the car. He's eating hungrily - last night's aversion to that beautiful steak had made it obvious before Irri said so that something was wrong with Dean's senses - but politely. Nobody would say, _fastidiously_ , except - for Dean, it's practically best behavior. Is that Irri's influence on him?

And then, for another thing… he's getting this powerful feeling of satisfaction out of seeing Dean eat. Nothing to do with the way he's eating, but the fact of him doing it. Sam feels as though he's done something right, seeing that. It's a peculiarly strong feeling, so specific it's like something in a dream. And it's not the only feeling like that Sam's had, since Dean gave him Bett.

So how much of them is in them, Sam wonders, and how much in the dæmon? Because of course, some is, some must be. But neither science nor philosophy seem likely to be able to help them much with their entirely unique situation. Sam still feels like himself, inside himself. Doesn't he? It's not as though he can even be able to tell, here on the other side of change. He's already changed.

He glances at Irri, but won't let himself stare. It would be upsetting to everyone. There. He must still be himself, if he cares about that, right?

 _Yourself is yourself,_ grumps Bett. _Get out of your navel._

Well. Sam is glad Bett hasn't changed. Her familiar form is all they have left of the old life.

 _I have changed,_ she tells him, in a 'duh' kind of tone.

Well. Yes, of course. She is his now. _But you're still your beautiful self,_ he tells her.

She hunkers down as though to deflect any more compliments.

Sam looks over toward Dean and Irri and accidentally meets Irri's eyes.

When she chose her new form, she chose eyes that are just like Dean's. The very same moss agate green, though of course hers have vertical pupils. People with cat dæmons sometimes match eye color like this, though not always. It's a pretty spectacular effect, with eyes like Dean's.

Bett shifts beside him. _I will bite you,_ she thinks clearly. Her mental voice is coldly furious. It rings in Sam's head like a bell and makes his stomach flip over.

Startled, he looks down at Bett to find her staring up at him. Her teeth are only just showing, but it's a deliberate show. Sam has never been threatened by his own dæmon before.

But then Dean startles him by saying, "Yeah could you maybe - not do that."

"Do - what?" Sam looks to Dean now.

Nobody says it aloud. Dean looks embarrassed and uncomfortable, a combination that Sam hasn't seen on him for some time now.

 _You were staring at her,_ Bett says. She's not showing her teeth anymore. Now her eyes - normal, dark wolverine eyes - look sad. _It was hurting them._

Oh. Sam drops his gaze to his plate and the half finished food on it, his cheeks burning. "Sorry. I didn't, didn't realize."

It's all so fragile. They're barely together. But Sam owes it to Bett, and to Dean (and to Irri) to be careful, not to destroy this difficult gift that's keeping them all alive.

He's not interested in the food anymore, but Dean does eat a little more after a minute. There's a thoughtful look on his face now. Sam realizes with a pang that Dean is harder to read than he used to be. Or maybe it's Sam who isn't as good at reading him as he was.

When they settle up the bill and leave, Sam suggests tentatively, "Should we go back to the motel? Maybe we all need more rest." Maybe it's too soon to be going out among other people.

But Dean shakes his head. "No. Let's get on the road. Sleep later. Someplace else."

A little while later, Dean changes direction and starts heading east. Sam wonders if he's got a destination in mind, but he doesn't ask. Things feel almost normal now, at least in the most basic sense. Even if Sam does feel a little bit like patchwork on the inside.

In the back seat, the dæmons continue to keep their distance from one another. Sam looks back, careful to keep his gaze on Bett, but that's enough to know that they aren't touching, that they aren't close like they used to be.

 _Neither are you_ , says Bett, and he doesn't think she means it sharply, but it does hurt to realize, she's right. She's right. They were lovers, before. He and Dean had - he remembers clutching at him desperately, kissing - and now it's like they're reset, back to arm's length most of the time. Is that over? Is that something like - not gazing too long at Irri's eyes? Is any intimacy a threat to the new connections they're forming with their dæmons? What if - what if that weren't temporary?

No, no, no, that's - that's unacceptable. That cannot be true. This is just Sam being paranoid. They've been through a lot. They're getting their bearings. People who had a heart transplant just days ago probably aren't having sex right away either.

He doesn't answer Bett. But he broods on it, as the miles slide by under the car. Dean tunes various radio stations in when they're in range, or gives up in disgust when they all go to commercials at once, which they always do. He's definitely got some destination in mind.

When they cross the Indiana state line, Sam frowns. "Dean. Tell me we are not going to see Lisa."

"No!" Dean says immediately. "No. Absolutely not. You remember how she was. You think she wants to see me with - " He stops himself short. A different dæmon, Sam guesses he was going to say.

"Well, where are we going?"

Dean hesitates, then sighs. "To check the place where I hid some stuff. The, the Horsemen's rings."

The rings. The key to the Pit. "What? Why?"

"I just… Well, Death had no problem getting _his_ ring back, it turns out. He was wearing it. And I had totally angel-proofed everything out the wazoo. So I'm thinking he really isn't an angel after all. Or else somebody or some _thing_ else got it for him. - But then I got to thinking, wondering if my hiding place was all busted up, if the rest of the rings were even still in there. They're still pretty powerful objects you wouldn't want rolling around loose, right? So I thought we ought to check."

"Oh. Yeah." Sam's brow is knitted as he thinks it over. His thoughts seem slower, more clouded, than he's used to. He's got the beginnings of a headache. "And you hid the rings… near Lisa's place?"

"Not _that_ near," Dean snaps. "More than a hundred miles away! It was right after - You had just… I couldn't - " To Sam's horror, Dean is choking up. He holds his breath, watching Dean struggle for control of himself, trying not to do or say anything to make it worse.

"I was gonna find a better place," Dean finally says, and though he still sounds a little choked, he looks calmer. He clears his throat. "And then you came back," and when Sam hears the way Dean's voice changes with this, the hopeful note of uplift through pain, he aches with love for Dean.

"Yeah," he agrees, and there's a husky note in his voice too.

They don't get all the way to Dean's hiding place that night. They both run out of energy at almost the same time, and by mutual agreement get take-out food instead of trying to deal with any more people today, besides a motel clerk of course. Dean does that chore. Two beds again. Sam was expecting it, though.

The place is a little familiar, he thinks as he sets the bag of takeout on the table. With all of the motels, that's a thing that happens sometimes. They've been here before - not recently, years ago maybe. Maybe even with Dad, though Sam doesn't quite think it was that far back. You'd think it would happen more often. Maybe it does, and he doesn't even notice. The endless stream of semi-anonymous spaces stretches out, depressingly, behind and in front of Sam.

"You all right?" asks Dean, as Sam sits down heavily on the end of his bed.

"Yeah," Sam says immediately. "Just - tired."

"He's sad," says Bett, in just exactly the way he used to appreciate, before, because she wouldn't let Dean hide _all_ his feelings. But it's very annoying when it happens to you, Sam realizes. Are any secrets safe with her?

He sees Dean glance at Bett with a fleeting frown and wonders if Dean is thinking a mirror of the same thought, that it's nice to be on the other side of it.

Sam can only shrug. He knows what Dean will say, that he should eat, and get a shower, and sleep. What else is there to do? And it's fine - it _is_ \- but the gulf between the two beds just feels - vast.

"You go ahead," he says, nodding at the bag on the table. "I'll eat after I shower." Maybe.

Dean looks like he guesses that 'maybe', but he nods and reaches for the food. "Okay." Sam tries to keep himself from looking at Irri at all, but he can't resist a glimpse as she jumps up onto the table. Her previous form hadn't had the luxury of doing that, Sam remembers all too well how much space she always used to need. If it's strange for a dæmon to be a dog for a while and then a cat, at least she seems to have thought it through.

But Sam learned his lesson at the diner. He doesn't stare. He nods, gets his bag, and goes into the bathroom, followed by Bett.

 _Is there any point asking you not to do that?_ he asks her, as he undresses and starts the water in the shower. _I don't hide my feelings, you don't need to out me all the time like you did with Dean._

She snorts. But she doesn't reply for a minute or two. Sam is under the shower spray, washing his hair, when she says, _I didn't_ all _the time. And you do hide some feelings! But you're right. I got tired of nagging him and got used to going around him. Should I just nag you, then? Since you're so reasonable._

Hah. Her tone is as crisp and tart as a Granny Smith apple, but it is nice for her to tell him he's right. _Yes please. Nag me first, anyway, before doing the end run around me._

_I'll try._

_That's good enough._ Sam is smiling a little now, inexplicably cheered even though all of the problems remain. His cheer wears off, anyway, when he's done and he gets dressed in the old T-shirt and sweatpants he used to sleep in, instead of coming out of the bathroom in only a towel for Dean's benefit, like he's gotten used to doing.

Because there's no point trying to start any of that, is there? All Sam would be doing would be spreading his own frustration around. At best. Worst case scenario is even more depressing.

 _What's that?_ Bett asks him.

For Dean to reject him outright, or tell him to put some clothes on, or anything else that would make it clear that the time when Dean's eyes, all hot and bright on him, made Sam feel more _wanted_ than anything in the world is just - over. After _everything_.

 _Stop. Or I'll out you to Dean as soon as you open the door,_ and Sam's hand hesitates just short of the doorknob.

 _Nagging already?_ Not to mention blackmail.

 _Don't be a dick._ Whoa, that's a little shocking. Dæmons don't usually swear, not even Bett. But she still has a lot of Dean, after all. _Just be patient. You'll scare him with that sad face. And then I'd have to out you, so._

What a pain she is. Sam frowns at her. Then he sighs, and picks her up, and hugs her to his chest.

_You're right. Please help me be patient._

She likes being told she's right, too. They've got that completely in common.

So Sam manages to come out of the bathroom without looking _too_ tragic about having clothes on, it seems, since Dean doesn't ask what's wrong, and Bett doesn't make any sudden announcements.

He does eat his half of the Chinese food, while Dean is taking his shower. It turns out to be pretty good - or else, maybe there are various nutrients needed in the brain to help facilitate dæmon integration, and some of them are in the food. So much interesting and maybe even useful science that's never going to be done, thinks Sam, because there's no way anyone could be trusted to study them and what they've done to themselves. They'd probably end up in some government lab somewhere. If this was the previous century it might have been a freak show.

 _You're getting gloomy again,_ Bett says, now sitting on the bed. _Would you feel better if you did the thing by yourself?_

 _Did the - ?_ Even though he's eating, Sam's mouth falls open. Some grains of rice escape before he starts coughing. _Bett. What. The. Fuck._

His face is hot with embarrassment. She is talking, pretty much _directly,_ about him masturbating…! But she did completely divert his thoughts from the unpleasant trench they were digging.

She shrugs. _Why is it a bad idea? What's the matter with it? Dean used to -_

_Okay, stop, don't tell me about what Dean used to do. Getting all hot and bothered is the opposite of being patient!_

_\- used to do it so he could sleep,_ Bett says, sharply.

Oh.

Still blushing, Sam retrieves the lost grains of rice. In the bathroom he can hear Dean turn the water off.

 _Well, too late now, unless that's something you can do super fast,_ Bett remarks.

_No, it isn't. You should've given me your sex advice when I was in the shower._

That's nothing but the truth, but now he's embarrassed _her_ , and it serves her right anyway. Still, it's a peculiar feeling. Maybe it ought to be a problem for them to be in any way divided, but this kind of back and forth feels comfortable, almost familiar. Having Bett's voice inside him, when he's heard no other voice but his own inside him for so many days, is a lifeline to normalcy for Sam, despite everything. He hopes that's the same for Dean and Irri.

When Dean opens the door, he seems to have split the difference: he's wearing old sleep pants, like Sam, but no shirt. Sam's eyes are drawn to that naked skin, and Dean, noticing, shrugs apologetically. "Need to do laundry."

Irri winds around Dean's leg for a moment, then she jumps up on the other bed.

"That royal jelly," Dean starts to say, and Sam interrupts, "Oh, right," going back into his bag to get it.

When he goes to hand the jar over to Dean, Dean says, "No, that's what I'm trying to say. Maybe you should have some too? I got some good sleep with it, anyway, and the dreams weren't _too_ weird."

Oh. Sam supposes it can't hurt. But because he hasn't answered yet, Dean goes on. "I know you and Bett seem kind of… more solid than us." His hand is on Irri's silvery back. Sam glances at her but then consciously moves his gaze back to Dean. Shirtless Dean. "But that doesn't mean you couldn't use some help. I dunno."

"No, I mean, yeah," says Sam. "I'll have some too."

So they both have some, and they both brush their teeth afterwards, and Sam feels a little wobbly by the time he gets into his bed. He has no idea what the royal jelly of normal bees is like, but Dean wasn't kidding when he said, way back when, that this fairy bee stuff should be marked 'do not operate heavy machinery'.

"Should I turn on the TV?" Sam asks Bett. "Time Leap ought to be on." He looks around for the remote.

"No, don't bother," she says. "We'll probably be asleep soon."

Will they? Sam wonders. Because the sparkling gold effects, which started around the edges of Sam's vision while he was brushing his teeth, are intensifying, and there's a restless energy uncoiling inside him that he's pretty sure will keep him awake.

But he's languid, too, almost in slow motion. Sam's glad he's lying down. He glances over at Dean, to find Dean staring at him. Not at Bett, but at him.

The look on Dean's face goes right to his heart, goes over Sam's skin like a shock, like a wave. Longing.

What Sam feels to see it is _relief_. So selfish, he knows it, but oh it is good to know that he's not alone in feeling like this. Dean feels it too. Oh god, of course he does.

 _Kind of dumb to doubt it,_ Bett remarks, but then she butts out.

"I miss you," Dean says, and then quickly, as though Sam is going to criticize this and say that he's right here, "I miss - Us."

Sam nods. "Me too."

Dean sighs. Now he looks away, his face reddening. "But I - can't. I just - can't do anything right now. I uh. I tried. Before. In the shower. But," he shrugs, shakes his head. "Still the weird - sensory thing. I just don't feel… Completely - connected yet."

Oh. Sam can see that. He can imagine that… and it turns him right around from his own selfish relief, frustration, and jealousy (yes, jealousy. Because Dean and Bett actually got a chance to say goodbye.)

"It's okay," he says, though of course he knows what Dean will say to that, and of course he says it.

"It's not okay!"

"Okay, maybe it isn't, and maybe it sucks, but it _will_ be okay, De. No matter what happens." Because they have to change, as they go forward in time, day by day. There is no going back, ever.

Dean is quiet for a minute, and Sam is starting to assume he's gone to sleep when he says suddenly, "What about you?"

"Hmm?" Sam wasn't sleeping, just drowsing as he he watches the sparkles swirling on the ceiling. "What about me?"

"Did you? In the shower?"

Sam catches his breath. He knows, his _brain_ knows that the thrust of Dean's question must be whether Sam's body is fully functional, not to get Sam excited talking about it. But by the time his brain is kicking in, the rest of Sam's body is answering that question. "No. But I'm kind of wishing I had, now."

"Oh, so you're…?"

"Yeah." Sam resists the urge to add 'sorry'.

Another moment of quiet, though this time Sam knows Dean is not asleep. He's restless, shifting around over there, across the uncrossable gulf in the other bed. Should Sam turn out the light?

"You could do something about it," Dean says softly.

"What…?" Though Sam heard perfectly well. His heart is pounding. Is Dean actually echoing Bett's advice…?

"You could do something about it," Dean says, a little louder now. "I could watch…?"

Oh! Sam licks his lips, and laughs breathlessly. "I'm, oh my god," he says, his voice hoarse with delayed need. "Are you _sure…_?"

"Yeah, go for it," Dean is whispering now as though they're kids planning pranks in a movie theater. "Let me see you."

All of Sam's previous gloom is shattered and forgotten in the excitement of the moment. He throws back his bedcovers, accidentally covering Bett. He immediately pulls them off her again, apologizing. She shakes herself all over, but she doesn't seem particularly offended.

Sam glances toward Dean, half guilty as though he expects Dean to think Sam isn't treating his dæmon right. But Dean doesn't look like he's thinking anything like that.

Sam pulls off the old T-shirt he was wearing, then hesitates, knowing what its fate will be if he doesn't go grab one of those little towels out of the bathroom. It seems so far away. But he knows it isn't. Sam tosses the shirt toward his bag, and gets up, wobbling slightly. Currents of sparkles in the air are disturbed, swirling, when he moves through them.

"What are you - ? Oh," says Dean as Sam comes back with it before he can finish asking the question. "Right," and he's blushing. It's so unexpectedly hot to see him blush like that that Sam pauses, smiles to himself, and gets one more thing from his bag: the lube.

Dean sits up, wide eyed, and Irri silently crawls into his lap so that he closes his arms around her. She settles down, squinching her eyes shut: staying with Dean, but not watching. Sam glances at Bett. She's close by, but not watching either. They might have put the TV on after all, Sam thinks, distractedly.

 _He's waiting,_ she tells him, and yeah, she's right.

Sam puts down the towel and the bottle of lube and takes his sweatpants off. This would have been quick except that, like a sex comedy sketch, they snag on his erect cock and almost cause Sam to fall over.

Dean does laugh, but he's got his face hidden while he does it, pressed against Irri's side. He looks up apologetically.

"It's all part of the show," says Sam, in a mock dignified tone which makes Dean stifle his face against Irri again, shoulders shaking.

"You're rumpling my fur," says Irri.

Dean lifts his head. "At least I'm not tripping over my own dick," he says, and Sam has to laugh.

"I didn't want to have clothes on in the first place," Sam says, and Dean looks startled. Then, some silent communication seems to pass between him and Irri. For just a moment, it makes Sam ache. Then, he lets it pass, sliding through him. He'll feel it again, but not all the time. And Bett needs Sam just as much as Sam needs Bett.

He lies back naked on his bed, now, near the edge so Dean can see better. Dean's gaze on his body is so hot that it feels like being touched. Sam wishes he had the patience to really give Dean a show, tease him with something long and drawn out, but he's too worked up to wait much longer. He reaches for the lube, and Dean's gaze follows that.

"Do you usually…? When you jerk off?" Dean asks, and Sam shakes his head as he squirts some of the stuff into his hand.

"No. Usually I do it in the shower." No need to explain the convenience of that. When else have they ever really had any kind of privacy? "But I think I like it better like this."

Sam wraps his lube-slicked hand around his aching cock and groans at the cool-hot-wet-pressure enveloping him, the wet sound of it. Dean's eyes are big on him, and he's biting his lip.

God, that feels good, and even better is the magic of Dean looking at him, watching him, enjoying it. Sam pauses what he's doing to change position: he gets up on his knees on the bed, looking at Dean.

"Yeah, Sam," Dean breathes, rapt. "God, yeah, _yeah._ Look at you."

Leaning on the other hand, Sam fucks into his wet fist, panting, driving with his hips instead of moving his arm. And he looks at Dean. Dean's lips, parted, Dean's eyes, half shut, Sam can tell what Dean is thinking, what he's imagining, Sam is imagining it too. What they'd be doing right now if they could. He arches his back, thrusts hard, biting his lip.

They will do it again. Surely. Sam won't only have to _imagine_ \- thrusting _into_ Dean while Dean grips his shoulders and urges him on -

"Yeah, Sammy, like that, come on," Dean whispers.

"Deeeaaan," Sam's eyes are tightly shut now, sparks are filling the darkness behind his lids, he thrusts hard and then holds still, every muscle taut and straining as the pressure bursts and he comes throbbing into his clenched hand.

Sam's shaking all over now, and he really overestimated his ability to contain all that in his hand, because he came a lot and he didn't think ahead with the towel when he changed positions. He's kind of made a mess really. Embarrassed, he looks to Dean, but Dean isn't laughing at his clumsiness this time. He's gazing at Sam almost starry-eyed, his cheeks pink. He swallows and licks his lips, then drops his gaze with a little grin. Sam has never seen anything so sexy in his life.

He cleans up as best he can, and he has good intentions about getting up again to get a moistened washcloth to try to deal with what he's done to the sheets, but instead he drops the towel on the floor and flops onto his back on the bed. Things are spinning, or is it revolving? Sam feels a little bit as though drunk, only without the nausea or any other unpleasant effects.

"Better?" Dean asks softly.

"Mm hmm." Sam manages to make the smile on his face audible in the humming response. He does feel better. And he's on the verge of falling asleep at last. He feels Bett creeping close to nestle along his ribs.

 _I do give good advice,_ she tells him, smugly.

_Yes, you do._

His dreams seem to have so much in them that they're compressed, so many images that Sam can barely retain any of them when he wakes up. Dean was with him, of course. Cas, acting human. And - Ruby, living in some big rich house, and not a hellion anymore. Or - ever…? Oh, well. Dreams are always confusing, but whether it's the effects of the royal jelly, or just what it's like when your neurons are interfacing with a dæmon you weren't born with, Sam can't possibly guess.


	17. Anywhere you want

Dean can't sleep for the longest time after that. He's glad Sam can, anyway.

 _God_ , that was fucking hot. Seeing Sam like that, so close, so fucking gorgeous, completely naked, worked up to the point of explosion, up on his knees fucking his big cock into his big hand, Jesus. Dean lies there aching as he listens to Sam's even breaths.

Sam might have gotten the impression that Dean couldn't get it up at all, because Dean said he _can't,_ but that's... not it. It isn't what he meant. Getting it up is definitely not a problem.

The problem is what happened in the shower when he tried to take care of it.

He'd even asked Irri first, that is, he asked her theoretically if it could hurt them, and she'd been so maddeningly - _everydæmon_ about it. _That sort of thing isn't my business._

Well, fine, that didn't sound like a 'Don't', anyway. It wasn't like he wanted her to watch or anything. Dean couldn't see Irri through the opaque shower curtain, but he could picture her, curled up with her back turned toward him on top of the closed toilet lid.

All Dean had to do, there in the shower, was think about that last time with Sam, when Sam looked back over his shoulder at Dean like a wild thing, his hair all messed up, demanding, but saying please at the same time. How he looked. How he felt. How hot it was inside him. And how much Sam loved it.

But when, thinking about all this, Dean had touched himself, wrapping his fingers around the shaft and giving it a pleasurable little tug, something - _happened_ \- a memory rose up in him and short circuited the present, a bad memory of touching, a Hell memory. Dean jerked his hand away, just barely preventing himself from crying out, from alerting Sam on the other side of the door. He didn't have to look out past the curtain to know Irri had jumped, too. It might even have made her fur stand out on end.

Now, lying here, Dean finds that it cools his ardor again to think about it. Because - god knows, Dean has had flashbacks in the time since he got out of Hell. He and Bett had both developed serious aversions to stuff that had been only unpleasant before - like dentistry. And every once in a while, at random, Dean would see someone who reminded him of someone in Hell. There had been a few standouts in the big blur of awful. So it happens sometimes. Dean accepts that.

But this memory wasn't _his_.

It's a memory from Hell all right, but it's Sam's. It's from the Pit. It's of Lucifer.

Sam told him, it feels so long ago now, all about the things that happened to him there. Not that he had lingered on details so much, but lingering wasn't really necessary, some poisons do their thing on contact. He'd said how Lucifer would embody himself any way he wanted there, or not - sometimes he would stay inside Sam and make him do things, experimenting on him with pleasures and tortures more or less at random. And that's the kind of moment that Dean flashed back to.

 _What else came with you?_ he asks the silver cat dæmon now. _What left me with Bett that I don't even realize?_

 _I don't know,_ Irri tells him. _You don't seem to make as many jokes now._ She pauses, tilts her head judiciously. _Though I don't suppose that you've had very much opportunity._

 _That's -_ Dean pauses, distracted. Can that be true? Then he shakes it off. So be it. _That's not what I mean. I'm talking about memories. Does Sam have memories of Alastair now?_

_I don't know. You'll have to ask him when he's awake. But I thought you knew that, Dean - how dæmons can be imprinted with traumatic memories._

Yes, Dean did sort of know that, thought of that last time they'd tried to go to a dentist when he really needed one, and how he was able to make himself sit down in the chair to endure it, but Bett had gone nuts. Dean wonders if that will be Sam's own special phobia now. He yawns.

 _You're tired,_ Irri says gently. _Sleep, so we can fit together better. I'm sorry. You gave so much and I'm afraid you got so little in return._

 _What…? Oh no you don't,_ and Dean gathers her in close. She doesn't resist, but she doesn't purr either. He closes his eyes. _You never asked for any of this. I remember. You didn't want Sam to let Lucifer in, to let you disappear into him. Don't tell me what I got in return, you said you weren't sleeping all that time you were inside Sam, you know how it is between us. We need each other. We're both alive, we're all alive. And I love you. So shut up now -please - and let me get that sleep._

 _I love you too, Dean_ , Irri says. And they sleep.

In the morning, Dean muzzily remembers dreaming about cowboys. Trying to blend in with real Old West cowboys, and not being smelly enough. And Sam trying to ride a horse. Seeing _that_ was when Dean realized he was dreaming. - He feels pretty good right now. And it's always pleasant on the eye to look over and see Sam buck naked.

But it reminds Dean of everything else last night, too. Should he tell Sam what happened? Should he ask Sam if Sam can remember stuff that didn't happen to him? Would asking make him remember stuff he otherwise wouldn't.

 _Can you ask Bett about it…?_ he wonders, but Irri's response doesn't feel encouraging.

_Even before, I wouldn't have risked asking her anything about Hell. I think you should leave it for now._

Yeah, Dean can see what she means. It's exactly the same problem: bringing it up would cause her to remember, and that would traumatize Sam. Not that it won't come up on its own, somehow, some way. But maybe it won't right away.

Sam is stirring slowly awake now, turning out of the half-curled up way he'd been sleeping and onto his back. He stretches his legs out - his feet always hang off the end. Beside him Bett, lying on her back, rolls from side to side before righting herself.

Irri nudges him, and Dean realizes he was staring. He makes himself turn away and toward his own dæmon.

 _I'm sorry,_ he tells her, touching the soft ruff of fur that surrounds her head like a lion's mane.

 _I understand,_ she tells him, her eyes big and wide, gazing up into his. _I do. But it still hurts, when you yearn toward her._

Yeah, that is totally, obviously fair, and Dean is about to say sorry again when another thought slaps him.

 _Toward - Sam, too…?_ Dean feels a stab of panic, adrenaline following after like thunder after the flash of light.

Sam, yawning, has opened his eyes and is gazing at Dean with puzzled worry, then apparently Dean's panic is contagious because he can see Sam's eyes widen as he sits up straight, wide awake now, his nice slow waking-up interrupted by what apparently looks like emergency conditions. "What's the matter?"

 _No,_ Irri is trying to tell him. She has to repeat herself. _No, Dean. No, I didn't mean that._

"Nothing," Dean grits out.

"Don't tell me 'nothing', tell me what the hell is going on," Sam growls, and he sounds so damn much like Dad it is fucking uncanny.

"It was a misunderstanding," Irri says aloud.

Sam looks at her but doesn't answer her, swinging his gaze to Dean.

It's not a flashback this time. But there's a whole lot of deja vu going on. Dean sighs.

"Stand down, dude. I was looking at Bett, just like you looked at Irri yesterday. I didn't mean to."

Sam looks to Bett, then back to Dean. "Oh," looking uncomfortable now. "Right. Yeah. Sorry."

He disappears into the bathroom with Bett. Neither of the dæmons can bear a closed door yet. Dean has to wonder if they ever will. There won't be any danger of absent-mindedly leaving Irri behind while he runs out for donuts, that's for sure. If Sam and Bett will ever be able to do it, Dean can't even guess.

He'd guess No if somebody put a gun to his head, but what the fuck does he know? What does anybody know about this?

Dean hears the water running and lies back with a sigh. Today they'll reach the place he picked out to hide the Horsemen's rings. He hadn't had a lot of time to deal with it, he'd been half out of his mind with misery and grief, thinking Sam was lost to him forever. But those rings really were hideously dangerous and so he had turned aside on his way to Lisa to bury them in the foundation of a newspaper plant that burned down twenty-odd years ago. He can remember painting the glyphs, breathing hard and trying to force his hand to be steady. Maybe he fucked up, drawing them. Maybe he did them wrong. It's Sam who is good at stuff like that, the little bits of lore, the Latin…

 _It's you who taught him all that,_ Irri tells him. _It certainly wasn't your father._

Oh. He hadn't… Dean hadn't thought of it like that. But jeez, how much credit does he get to take, he taught Sam his colors and numbers and the alphabet, too, but Sam had soaked that and all other knowledge up like a thirsty sponge. Whenever Dean did get to go to school, he would share what he'd learned with Sam, because Sam was so eager to learn that even math was fun to him. And later on, all the reading, drama stuff, old plays, Dean can't even understand what the people are saying to each other in them, it's like opera without the singing. He can remember Sam, still a kid, maybe ten, reading through Macbeth and patiently explaining it to Dean, acting it out as though it were a gangster movie. And he made it make sense. Dean would have aced the test on that for once in his life, only Dad yanked them out of school again the day before and they moved on, like they always did.

Sam finishes his shower and comes out, in his towel, but looking shamefaced. "Sorry De. I kind of pulled a Dad there somehow. Interrogating you. I didn't mean to."

Dean shrugs, shakes his head. "It's okay." He's ready to get moving out of here. "I'm gonna shower, you wanna stop at that diner again on the way out? The breakfast was pretty good."

"Anywhere you want," Sam says.

So Dean spends his shower thinking about food, and not about sex, keeping his mind on one pleasure over another, because he just can't shrug off another moment like that with Sam on the alert. Of course he can't put it off forever, he glances at Irri as though expecting her to tell him so, but she just squinches her eyes at him, because he thought of it himself.

The diner is exactly what he wanted, he knows what to order, and Sam gets breakfast too. It's all good, and they're leaving, standing up near the front where the cash register is, waiting to settle up, when somebody just coming in from outside says in startled recognition, "Hey - Winchesters!"

And they freeze in horror - because anybody who knows them knows what their dæmons are supposed to be. This could turn so ugly, so fast.

But for all the short, weedy guy seems to know them, Dean is certain he's never seen him before in his life. There's no way he could ever forget a dæmon like that.

"You Dean?" the guy asks Sam. "You're taller than I thought."

"Sorry, who are you?" says Sam, at the same time that Dean says, " _I'm_ Dean."

"I'm _Garth_ ," says the guy, like they're supposed to know who he is. But Sam's face does show understanding, and Dean still has no idea. "And Lili," Garth adds, and the cassowary dæmon beside him, taller than the human is, dips her Mohawk-crested head a little and blinks honey-brown eyes at them. The bright blues of her head and the red of that thing that dangles down from her beak are anbarically vivid in the light/shadow of the doorway.

There's finally somebody behind the cash register to take their money, and Dean hands it off. Sam, leaning a little closer, says, "He's a hunter. Bobby knows him."

Overhearing this, Garth says, "That's right, I'm a friend of Bobby's. I've been to his house, he's got pictures of you both. Only I thought it was Dean who was the wolverine."

Ugh. Dean has never liked people who refer to people as their dæmon type. (Of course, _Dad_ had loved being referred to as a 'wolf.') It's too much like astrology -

_But you used to do it to Sam all the time, when I was a bitch._

Dean is shocked enough by this to turn toward her, astonished - and then defensive.

_That's - that was -_

_Oh, I'm sure that was different,_ she says, in a pointedly gracious way that makes Dean feel really stupid. He hasn't even been paying attention to what Sam is saying to Garth. Whatever it is, the guy and his Big Bird of a dæmon seem pretty relaxed. Not like they're about to assume that he and Sam are - what - impostors, or…? They haven't even thought about how they're supposed to explain who they are now, to people who knew them before.

Not that this guy is exactly that. But it's still a potential problem. What would Dean have thought, himself, if he saw, say, Bobby walking around with any dæmon other than Theya? (It's like science fiction even trying to imagine it.)

They're trying to edge around Garth's giant dæmon to get out the door when he says, "Actually, maybe you guys can help me with something. Usually I work alone - "

His dæmon clicks her enormous beak. It's surprisingly loud in the noisy diner.

" - with Lili, of course, but sometimes I call on Bobby for the skinny on lore, and when I called him yesterday he said he was too hung over and to leave him alone for a week."

Oh - lore. Well, that's Sam's department, most of the time. He says to Irri, _I'm sorry I hurt you saying that. I never even thought you'd think I meant it like that._  It was a stupid thing to say anyway, and he's pretty sure he's been cured of it. She doesn't answer, but Dean can tell she's pleased with him, or more pleased than she was.

"Let's go outside," says Sam, as more people approach the cash register.

In the parking lot, it's easy to guess whose Ranchero that is. How does that big dæmon even fit _in_ there? Sure, Dean's got a built-in Chevy bias, but an El Camino would at least have a little more room for those long cassowary legs.

 _It is convenient to be a little smaller,_ Irri says comfortably. All trace of any earlier tension is gone, as though it never happened.

Damn, no wonder Sam has always been such a diplomat. But then, Bett would have humored him by agreeing about the El Camino, even though she doesn't care about stuff like that in the slightest. Or she might have tried to make him laugh with an image of that dæmon sitting shotgun in the Ranchero with her knees up around her pointy head.

Dean tunes back in to the conversation when Garth praises his Baby a little too faintly - by suggesting she's common. Sam's annoyed too, Dean can see it in the way he tightens his lips.

"Right, we're on our way out of town here, Garth, so what was it you wanted to ask Bobby about anyway?"

Sam's not being _completely_ rude, but he's not exactly friendly either. Garth doesn't seem fazed by this at all, though. He has a breezy quality that Dean would expect to see in a much bigger guy - but that's how small guys with big dæmons often are. There might be something a _little_ comical about that big shaggy wingless bird looming over the little guy's shoulder, but the only reason Dean even knows what a cassowary is is because he's seen a documentary on Nature's Most Badass Animals. It also included the wolverine, come to think of it.

Garth pulls out a notebook coated in pencil scribbles and goes into a long explanation about a ghast he's hunting that only appears during certain phases of the moon. But it didn't appear when he thought it would, so he must have gotten something wrong - the records are incomplete, and Bobby has rare old books with tables of lunar eclipses, but without access to that, doing the math himself…

It seems right up Sam's alley, as far as Dean can tell, but when he glances over, Sam looks - Blank. So blank that it scares Dean, because _blank_ was how Sam had looked when time was standing still in Rowena's tent. Did something happen? To Bett? To their connection? But when Dean's panicked eye lands on Bett, she seems fine - though very still. She's looking up at Sam, too. But she's there. Dean tries to breathe, feels his heart pounding.

"Sorry," Sam says, slowly, and the life seems to come back into his face, but he's not happy. "I don't - I'm not - " He's trying so hard to find something to say that isn't the whole truth. Dean needs to get Garth's attention off Sam. Irri leans into him, and he has a lightbulb moment.

"Wait. How far back did this go? When did the guy die?"

"Uh, after the Civil War. 1883," says Garth.

"You're figuring the leap years wrong," Dean says. "1900 wasn't a leap year. It's one of the exceptions. Like 1800. - Fix that and the rest of it looks okay."

"Oh!" Garth bends over his notebook, and Sam turns a puzzled frown on Dean. Dean doesn't blame him. But they're not talking about it in front of this guy.

"You've saved me a whole lot of trouble, amigo," Garth tells him. "I owe you one."

Dean shrugs this off, eyes on Sam, but Sam has turned away toward the car without another word to Garth. "Right, well," Dean says, "good luck. If you want, I can tell Bobby to call you, next time I talk to him."

"Oh, no need," the dude is all cheerful. "I'm all locked on now. But, priorities. Destination breakfast, brah. Thanks again!"

Garth goes back into the diner, holding the door for his dæmon to go in first.

"Okay," Dean starts to say, then realizes Sam is nowhere near him, Sam's already in the car.

It's obvious how upset Sam is. Bett is hunkered down behind him on the passenger side of the back seat. Dean and Irri get in.

"Listen," Dean says. "We're lucky that wasn't somebody who _really_ knows us, 'cause if - "

"How did you know that?" Sam cuts in. "About the leap years? You never pay attention to things like that."

Dean doesn't want to talk about this. He so doesn't want to. "Bobby could've told him that, if the dude hadn't called him at the wrong time," he mutters. "Hell, _Google_ could've told him that."

"But I couldn't," says Sam, flatly. "It just - wasn't in my head. Like - a whole lot of other things. Stuff I _know_ I knew. Just not there."

Dean is tense now, gripping the steering wheel even though he hasn't started the car yet. "Yeah. I know. I got stuff that isn't mine, too. Not just - leap years."

"This is scaring me," Sam says. "I don't know who I am now."

"Oh, not this again," groans Bett, from the back seat.

"Yeah Bett, _this again,"_ Sam snaps, not looking back at her.

"I'm sorry," Dean says. His breakfast feels like an iceberg in his belly. "There wasn't any other way - "

"Dean," anguished, "I _know_ that! You think I'm _blaming_ you?"

"I don't know," dropping his voice down quieter, to undercut instead of trying to shout over Sam. "You could. You could blame me for being too selfish to let you go." Dean can imagine it. "You could say, if it had all gone the other way around, that you would _never_ have done this to your own dæmon. That it would've been better to, to kill us all - "

The silence from the back seat as the dæmons hear him say this is deafening.

"I would never say that," Sam says, shocked. "I don't think that. Dean. I _did_ do that to my own dæmon. When I let Lucifer in. Don't you think I know that? I know why Irri was hidden, now. She was _hiding_ from _me_. I think she's happier with you."

"What…?"

" _Stop_ ," from the back seat, but it's Bett, not Irri as Dean was half expecting. "Stop it. This makes it harder."

Sam exhales loudly through his nose. But he doesn't say any more. Dean, his brains feeling overburdened with too much knowledge that he didn't know he didn't want, puts the key in the ignition and starts the car.

It doesn't even take two hours to get to the place Dean put the rings. Hardly any time has passed, of course, but he still has to think hard to remember part of the way. Bett remembers, though. Which just underscores the whole thing Sam is upset about. Dean supposes he ought to be upset about it too but… the fact that there's really no way to tell how different he is now is kind of a comfort to Dean. After all, he and Bett were remade by Castiel, when he pulled them out of Hell. What's to say he's still the same Dean he was before Hell? He wasn't, he found that out. He and Bett were already changed there.

The spot looks undisturbed. At least it isn't hanging open like some looted tomb. Of course it'd be a very _small_ looted tomb, about the size of a shoebox. The runes and glyphs he drew look pretty solid, not all shaky like Dean had imagined. Inside the hollowed out space, there are three rings. Two silver, each with a stone - Famine and Pestilence - and one plain gold, War. All good.

And - a small wooden box.

"What's that?"

Cautiously, Dean turns it over in his hands, shrugs, hands it to Sam. "I've never seen it before. I guess - Death left it when he took back his ring." Then he frowns, as he looks at it in Sam's hands. "But I've seen that symbol on the top. Me and Bobby used it when we were trying to summon Cas way back. Along with a whole bunch of other stuff. - It's a, what do you call it. Something something hexagram. Star of Solomon."

Sam's fingers trace the six-pointed shape carved into the wood. Bett, stretching up, looks at it too. Then Sam fiddles with the box for a minute, frowning with concentration. After a few attempts, the small topmost part unexpectedly comes open like the lid of an old Band-Aid box, then from there it's easy: the front piece with the star swings out from a bottom corner. Under that is a smaller lid that slides free.

Inside is a key.

Sam lifts it out and hands it to Dean.

It's heavy, old. Beautifully made, like the box. The part at the top of the key, the part you hold, has the same hexagram symbol. And there's a little slip of paper wrapped around the key's shaft, like a message tied to a bird's leg. Dean unrolls it carefully, trying to read the letters from the curling surface.

"'You will discover a connection'," he reads aloud. It's handwritten, in a narrow, precise hand, with dark black ink. "To what? What is this, a fortune with no cookie? There's even lucky numbers on the back. What a smartass."

Sam, squinting, plucks it out of his hand. "No, look - not just numbers, there's an N and a W, see? They're coordinates."

Oh. Well. Dean has never been so glad to feel dumb. He reaches down beside him, reflexively, and touches Irri's fur.

"Where to?"

Sam pulls up the map thingy on his phone and puts the coordinates in, checking back and forth between the phone and the slip of paper to make sure he hasn't made any mistakes.

"Somewhere in Lebanon, Kansas."

It's almost a ten hour drive, but there's no question of stopping anywhere tonight. They don't even need to talk it over. They do stop for dinner, but there aren't any incidents this time. There's an air of excitement now, wondering what the hell this key will open, that preempts the worry about who's got whose marbles - at least for now.

They're not on a hunt - as far as they know, anyhow - but it sort of feels like they are, sharing the load of driving more or less equally, moving together in familiar rhythm, toward a specific destination, with something to figure out when they get there.

The town of Lebanon itself hardly seems to still exist. Dean can't even imagine what the hell might be out here that this fancy key will fit. There are signs here and there proclaiming this the exact center of the country - or most of the country, anyway - but it has not exactly turned out to be a big tourist draw.

They find what they're looking for just before full dark. A massive, forbidding-looking old building, once white, juts up into the gloom, its tall narrow windows covered with bars. There's a door down at the bottom, below ground level.

"What the hell _is_ this place?" Or _was_.

"Some old - anbaric power plant? I've never seen anything like it," says Sam, gazing up at it. They pick their way down the crumbling steps to the door.

"Looks like this is where the key goes," says Dean.

Because they aren't _complete_ newbs, and it looks as though no one has been here in sixty or seventy years, they have the sense to stand aside when the door swings open, in case the air inside is bad. But it seems okay. It's dark as misery inside, though. They go back to get flashlights out of the trunk of the Impala, and then go inside the mysterious door.

"Son of a bitch," Dean says, after a minute. Old equipment… chessboard… ancient ashtrays overflowing with cigarette butts… Circuit box! He opens it, and pulls the first of the switches. Might as well. Not like it's going to work, but -

It does work. There's a loud humming, and lights start coming on. There are two levels - up here where the circuit box is, and down the stairs where Sam is going now. The lights show more of the old communications equipment, radios, a telegraph even. A big table with a map of the world. Dean turns the rest of the switches on.

"Son of a bitch," says Sam, walking forward, his eyes wide.

This place - whatever the hell it is - is huge. And - kind of weirdly beautiful. It opens out into a massive space, like a library, no, it _is_ a library - books - big table, what is that, mahogany or something, classy - reading lamps with glass shades - and leather chairs - and beyond, corridors of rooms stretch out on either side.

They look at each other.

"I think we found the Batcave," says Bett.

Dean wishes he had said that, but he hadn't even thought of it.


	18. It's all ours

They find it - the 'connection' - not long after. The Men of Letters, and Henry Winchester. As far as Sam can tell, he and Dean actually have some right to be here, beyond just being in possession of the only key. This was apparently the kind of secret society that thought highly of 'legacies'.

There's water and anbaric power, though how, Sam has no idea. The building above is just a shell. The bunker is a treasure trove of information and a perfect hiding place for dangerous artifacts (their first additions to it are the three Horsemen's rings, and the cloud pine branch.) The place is warded against everything Sam has ever heard of. Including angels. They'll need to nullify those glyphs if they want Cas to be able to come in.

Dean loves the kitchen, the shooting range, the garage full of old vehicles. He's got Irri in his arms as he explores, hugging her intermittently.

Then there comes the question of choosing bedrooms. And it's unexpectedly awkward. Because unless and until they replace them with something more modern, the beds aren't even up to modern queen size standards. Sam is used to his feet hanging off to some extent wherever he sleeps, but this is pushing _ridiculous_. Bett will have to sleep on top of him if she wants to be on the bed too, or else be his pillow.

It isn't as though he and Dean are quite ready to share a bed again. Sam longs to, but he isn't going to push. Even leaving aside the sizes of the beds, though, they just aren't used to sleeping in separate rooms. They've shared their space for as long as Sam can remember, possibly longer.

He longs for Dean, and it might be hard to be within sight of your longing, but even worse is when it's behind a closed door.

Well. They are still sharing a space. It's just… a much bigger space than a motel room. More like an entire motel. - And even in a motel room, there's a door on the bathroom. Sam has to stop being selfish. Dean's got to want some privacy. He hasn't had a room of his own since he was a little kid.

Dean scopes out the bedrooms, frowns at all the beds. He pauses in the last one, frowning even more. Irri is down on the floor now, investigating on her own. Sam, who has been following listlessly, leans against the doorjamb, and Bett goes into the room.

"What do you think?" Sam asks, cautiously.

"It's hard to pick," Dean says. "I mean - it's all ours." He shakes his head. "This one's closest to the shower room. But the beds are stupidly small. We need to go get a big one. If it'll even fit in here."

"What?" says Sam.

"I want one of those memory foam ones," Dean starts to say, then gets a look at Sam's face. "Oh. Did you… Do you want, like, your own - ?"

"No! I just, I just figured _you_ would."

Dean gets a funny little smile on his face, and for a moment, Sam swears they're both remembering the same thing, the same moment, how stricken Dean had been at the very thought of Sam going off to live on his own, to hide in the woods.

"I'm fine with memory foam," Sam adds, pulling them both gently away from that moment and forward into this one. "But for god's sake let's get a California king, all right?"

"Dude. Of _course_."

Out of the corner of his eye, Sam can see Bett and Irri. They're nearer in size than they used to be: Bett can't just climb on top of Irri anymore, when she's overwhelmed. But they lean into one another, just for a moment, before moving apart again. There's a whisper of warmth from the contact.

 _We're going to be okay,_ Sam realizes, in a dazzling burst of delayed relief. _We really are._

Bett comes back to him, and he picks her up. _And we have a home,_ she reminds him.

 _That's right._ Sam never did have any picture in his mind of what the home he wanted should actually be. If he'd sat down to seriously think it through, break it down, he would have made a list of needs much shorter than the list of what the bunker's got to offer. This place is more like a pie-in-the-sky wish list for a couple of homeless hunters. There's a laundry room. There's an underground swimming pool! And, unlike the long nomadic road of motel rooms over the years, they're not even defrauding anybody. For a change.

Even angels can't come in, if Sam and Dean don't want them to. They're safe here.

Dean is looking at him, Sam realizes. At him and Bett. Irri jumps up on the bed and bumps her head against Dean's hand. But the look on Dean's face isn't sad, or jealous, it's the same look Sam knows is on his own face when he looks at Dean, with Irri, so natural already. After so much wrong happened, they're so _right_ together.

Sam strides forward into the room, puts his free hand on the back of Dean's neck, and kisses him. Dean startles a little, but doesn't pull away. All four of them are touching in a warm chain of contact.

Sam draws back, reluctantly, before it can go on too long or get too heated. They are going to be okay, he knows it, but not instantly - he knows that too. They can be safe now, they can have time to heal now. Their new normal is all around them, all they need to do is settle into it.

It's late, by now. Bed shopping has to wait until morning at least. They decide to try out that shower room, and then figure out the sleeping arrangements for the night. That is, Dean decides, and Sam gladly goes along with it. "Any plan that has both of us taking our clothes off is a good and solid plan," he tells Dean while they're stripping down, and is rewarded with a wonderful view of Dean blushing pretty much all over. Life is good after all.

Like most rooms in the bunker, the shower room is almost absurdly spacious. "Did they really expect this many guys to be showering at the same time?" Dean wonders. "I know," says Sam. "And without any curtains dividing them."

Dean turns one of the taps on, and then jumps back a little at how powerful the water pressure is. He turns wide eyes toward Sam.

"Oh my god, this water pressure…!"

They end up turning on the next tap over and aiming them both toward one another. The result is a dual-headed shower experience that makes Bobby's rather nice bathroom seem cute in comparison. By the time they're done washing, they're both sleepy and stupid, blinking through the massive clouds of steam. The two dæmons have retreated to wait near the door.  

"Wow," says Dean, panting a little, after the water is off. "That was awesome. That water pressure is just - " He searches for a word. "Marvelous."

Sam thinks, Dean would never have used that word before they changed. He looks at Dean, smiling, unable not to smile because it was cute, and Dean turns to see him looking, and instead of saying 'What?' or getting self-conscious, or defensive... Dean smiles at him.

"I feel like I've been worked over. Let's figure out what we're sleeping on," Dean says.

They will need new towels, they discover. The Men of Letters had plenty of towels, all embroidered with their logo, even, but they didn't age as well as most of the other things here (like the really nice robe Dean finds and claims, that is obviously meant for someone as tall as Sam, and that Sam tries but fails to tease him out of by calling 'the dead guy robe'.) They're flat, scratchy, and deteriorating. Sam and Dean dry off as best they can, then return to the nearest bedroom and stare glumly at the stupid little bed.

"Okay, help me with this frame, we're getting rid of it anyway."

They take out the bed frame, leaving the boxspring and mattress, then go and get another boxspring and mattress from the next bedroom over, and end up with a low, short but wide sleeping surface.

"Looks like a hippie love nest," Sam laughs.

"Well, it won't so much when I get all the weapons up there on the wall," Dean says comfortably.

They sleep soundly on that 'hippie love nest.' Really, it's just two beds shoved together, nothing revolutionary, but the fact that Dean would rather do that than sleep apart for one night is like a gift, to Sam. They can't really cuddle exactly, because they'll end up shoving into the gap and driving the mattresses apart, but Sam can reach across and drape his arm over Dean's back, and Dean can do the same, reaching to rest his hand against Sam's chest. Sam can feel the dæmons settling down together as he slides into warm, comfortable darkness.

The next day is an exhausting whirlwind that doesn't feel at all like what Sam thinks of as nesting, but it obviously is. It must be the part where the birds wear themselves out flying back and forth with twigs. They are a full hour's very boring drive from practically anything. There's a Walmart in Concordia… and… that's pretty much it. But that'll do to start. They also need to set up a mailbox or two somewhere, so they can order stuff by mail, since they can't exactly use coordinates to their secret bunker as a return address.

So there's shopping of all kinds, and the Impala is groaning with supplies when they finally get back. Dean has taken the kitchen's massive pantry as license to buy massive amounts of things to go into it. Also the liquor cabinet.

They even use real money.

They contact Bobby to let him know they're okay, but they're vague about where they are. They'll tell him, they agree. But not right away.

It takes a couple of weeks to sort out the bed problem, though. The hassle about how to get it delivered is ridiculous, but since they can't give their address and the delivery company doesn't seem to want to let them pick it up, they're stymied. In the end they break into the warehouse in the middle of the night to liberate it, using one of the old trucks from the Men of Letters' garage. The noise the engine makes is appalling, but the place is deserted, not even a dog.

Dean seems to enjoy it, though, at least once they've got all the pieces inside. The love nest finally disassembled, they assemble the frame and put the new bed together.

Then they have to take the desk out, because it really doesn't fit in here with all that bed. Dean shrugs. "There's a whole library out there."

They had to get new sheets to fit the big new bed, of course, and once those are on, there it is: Their bed. Whatever else either of them may feel like changing, it's a home now. Home base. All the way, home.

_Say it or I'll out you._

"It's all ours," Sam says aloud. Dean turns toward him, grinning. His eyes are shining.

***

Dean pulls Sam down to him and gives him the most rewarding kiss he knows how.

"Let's break it in," he says, hoarsely, against Sam's throat. Sam's pulse is fast-fast-fast under his lips. "Right now."

Sam is nodding Yes, chasing breathlessly after another kiss. Then they have to split apart to get their boots off, they've already learned this lesson, the rest of their clothes are more negotiable.

The dæmons are both on the bed already, but well out of the way when the two humans fall onto it. God, this bed! It feels amazing, and it's actually big enough, and doesn't have a seam down the middle. Perfection.

It isn't the first sex they've had since they've moved in here. It's just that what they've done has been more furtive than this, more careful, because Irri made Dean admit to Sam that he's seizing up sometimes, and Sam wasn't even surprised, or freaked out. He already knew, he and Bett have their own set of mismatched memories of Hell. - So they've kept things on a lighter level, where it's easier to stop if things go sideways. Just touching, at first. And then more recently, some mind-bending blowjobs, with and without the benefit of royal jelly.

Sam has been watchful, and so has Dean, and while that's right, while they've been healing, now - it doesn't feel like enough anymore. There are some things Dean doesn't dare try to do, at least for now, but Sam made it clear that he's never expected things to be one way or another in bed. Whatever works for both of them, works.

Here and now, Dean sheds the rest of his clothes and reaches out to help Sam with his. Sam is laughing, breathless, surrendering under his hurrying hands, and Dean loves him so fucking much.

"Tell me what you want," Sam says, as Dean throws the last of his clothes onto the floor and turns back toward him.

"I wanna fuck you," Dean says, without hesitation, without once thinking about anything Dad ever said. "God, I want you. Please?"

"Yes," Sam is nodding again, "Yes. Please." He laughs a little, possibly because they both said _Please_. So polite!

He has to admit, it's a lot more fun a thing to say to each other than _I'm sorry._

 _Then_ , goddammit, Dean has to go and get the _lube_ , because it's still in the drawer of the _desk_ , which they moved to the room next _door_. He pads out naked (because they can walk around naked as much as they want) and retrieves it, and only when he comes back and sees Irri still lolling on the bed does Dean realize: he went out of his dæmon's sight and he didn't even feel it.

 _You were very close,_ she tells him, dreamily. _The next room. We're fine. Don't worry._

Sam reaches out for him, and Dean has to admit, Irri is right. They are fine. In fact they're so fine that Irri is taking advantage of her cat form to wash Bett's face, and Bett is enjoying it.

Sam wants to be face to face. He's almost apologetic about it, but Dean has enough sense to ignore that. He knows why. "Good," Dean says, and kisses Sam for a while until he's restless for more.

"Use some of the jelly," Sam says, as Dean reaches for the lube. Dean hesitates. That at least wasn't in the desk, it's here, down on the floor on the other side of the bed, since the last time they used it.

"What - as lube?" They haven't done that. Dean's doubtful it would be good for that. It doesn't seem viscous enough for all that action.

"No, plus lube. Just start off with the jelly."

Well - okay. This is a new idea, but intriguing now. The dæmons aren't objecting - for all they pretend not to be interested in sex, they will speak up when anything gets weird.

Dean strokes jelly against Sam's ass with his fingertips and, while he's at it, takes Sam's cock into his mouth, rewarded by the sounds Sam makes now that they don't have to restrain themselves at all. He takes it easy, not trying to push Sam to the edge too quickly, and lifts his head to watch Sam's face as he slips a finger inside.

"De," Sam is moaning, doing a kind of slow writhe that Dean recognizes, an effect of the gold sparks. He's started to be able to see them again himself, when Sam has done this for him.

"Yes," Sam pants. "Yes - oh god Dean. Lube now, please, please, hurry."

Hurry? But Sam does seem urgent, and he's so fucking beautiful, and Dean will do anything he asks. He grabs for the lube, wets his fingers in it and slides two into Sam's heat, while Sam grips the new bedcovers and moans. "Fuck - yes," pushing against Dean, "yeah, go on, give me another one, _ooooooh_ \- " as Dean obeys him immediately.

"That's enough," after a minute, an agonizingly eternal minute of Dean trying not to come before he ever gets inside. "Now, Dean, I need you, now."

He would put more lube on, but Sam is pulling at him really hard. Dean did use a lot, he hopes it's enough. That's the last coherent thought he has before he slides into the hot tight source of all pleasure, all light, all home - Sam's voice in his ear, crying out, Yes, and Oh -

The sparks are like water and like light, surging, animate, swirling in patterns. The surging is largely because of Dean, thrusting, and Sam, rising to meet him, urging him on. The patterns seem to come from the sparks themselves, in response to them. It's a dance. Of light. And heat. Oh Sam.

Sam's arms, strong around him, the source of all gravity and sense. Sam's mouth, open under his, tongue against his. Sam's legs around his waist. Sam's heat wrapped around his thrusting cock. Sam's -

 _We love you,_ Bett says to Dean, and it's a shock, hearing her voice in his head again. He never expected -

He looks down at Sam, who gazes up at Dean as though Dean is the one who's amazing.

_We love you too._

They don't have to urge each other to come, they know it's time, it's part of the pattern, it's fireworks in Heaven, drawing tight like a net of stars. The explosion is like that too, elemental, world-ending - or world-making.

It kind of feels more like that.

***

Pause. Fast forward.

A few weeks after that, they let Castiel come in and see the bunker. No offense meant to him, but Dean figures out a way to disable the glyphs so that they can be re-engaged in a hurry without their having to repaint them. "Just in case we need to keep any other angels out sometime. You never know."

"That is a sensible precaution," Cas agrees solemnly.

He admires the various features of their new home, but he keeps glancing down at Irri, Dean notices. Irri loves being looked at, so no problem there. They find Sam in his favorite spot, sitting at the big library table with his laptop and a pile of old books. He's lost some of his previous easy recall of facts, but not his interest in geekery, so he's in the middle of developing a method of notetaking to help shore that up.

"Hey, Cas," says Sam, looking up from his screen and leaning back in his chair. Bett, lounging on top of the table (it already shows signs of living with her and her claws, but oh well,) says, "Hello, Cas," in a passable imitation of the angel's total deadpan delivery.

"Hello, Sam. Hello, Bett," Cas says, either not noticing the teasing, or else not minding it. Irri jumps up beside her sister onto the table. Now she's standing up on it, Irri's head is up almost as high as the humans' heads.

"So, Dean showed you around, what do you think?" Sam asks. "Not bad for a secret headquarters, huh?"

"It seems ideally suited for your needs," says Cas. He looks up at the ceiling, around at all the books, and whatever else he sees when he looks at things - architecture, topology, dust motes. "And with a family connection, it must seem even more like home."

He definitely sounds a little wistful about that. His own home and family are a mess, of course. Dean expects him to say more about that, but instead Cas says,

"You seem - so balanced. Both of you. - All of you."

Dean and Sam glance at one another. Dean is about to say _We're getting there,_ but before he can, Cas goes on.

"I have always been amazed, _awed_ at the human ability to endure suffering, and to adapt in response - to create a new way. You, most of all, out of all humans I've ever observed.

"But that does not erase the suffering itself, for any of you. I am glad for what you have made, but I am so very, very sorry for what you have suffered, and for my part in that. I hope you can forgive me, someday."

Irri says, "You saved us from Hell. Thank you."

"You saved us _all_ from Hell," says Bett. "You're our best friend."

Dean looks to Sam again. His Sam. Alive, and - if they're a _little_ bit different - Sam is _whole_. They both are. His beautiful dæmon is Dean's, now. And Dean's is his.

"That's right," Dean tells Cas, and as he does, he feels Irri's approval thrumming through him like a soundless purr. Talking about feelings is a thing she likes, god help him. "You are. And there's nothing to forgive."

Cas smiles in obvious relief, his shoulders sagging - and, out of his eyeshot, Sam gives Dean a smile that bodes well for later on.

Because Sam still likes that stuff too, and ignores Bett whenever she makes fun. Which is exactly the right line to take with Bett, Dean knows. Whatever she may say, Bett still loves watching Time Leap - they basically got cable here at the bunker just to feed her habit - and every single episode of that show always ends with some kind of big talk about feelings.

And that - not the time travel, or the buddy comedy, or even the professor's dæmon changing forms - is really her favorite part.

**Author's Note:**

> I was never planning on this being novel length. My concept of the story - which hinged on "What if Soulless Sam wasn't soulless?" - ended much more easily for everyone, with Rowena ALMOST succeeding but then getting impaled or something (because: shrike daemon, impale, poetic justice etc.) But it didn't go that way. As I got closer to it, I realized that she would have to at least SEEM to succeed. I swear, I didn't know until Death said so that intercision was irreversible even for him. But when somebody like that says something like that, you have to listen. So what I thought would be the end wasn't even close. I wrote them all into this situation, and I had to sort it out. 
> 
> I guess when I said 'don't worry about characters you love,' I wasn't exactly thinking about Rowena. I actually do love her! But she was the Big Bad in this one, so she didn't make it in this universe. Sorry. 
> 
> ~~I don't intend for this to have any sequel, but it's become a total joke for me to even say that. I ALWAYS SAY THAT. And then the characters come back with more stuff. So, I don't know! :)~~   Yeah, I'm working on the sequel. There's some seriously unfinished business with Castiel. :) I'm 64,000 words into said sequel - and trying to push forward and finish it.
> 
> So... about 'Time Leap'. I really did see Quantum Leap as Bett's favorite show for all the reasons described, but it's also the first fandom I wrote slash in. [Behold](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Janet_Coleman_Sides/works?fandom_id=452) if you dare. :)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Hidden](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13554684) by [AxeMeAboutAxinomancy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AxeMeAboutAxinomancy/pseuds/AxeMeAboutAxinomancy)




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